ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some of the complex issues concerning French historiography and the Occupation raised by the treatment of the Raymond and Lucie Aubrac in the 1990s. It focuses on how French historians and crucial witnesses construct the relationship between history and memory, written sources and oral testimony, past events and their present rememoration. The treatment of the Aubracs highlights the increasingly important influence of two other constituencies on the making of Occupation history: the justice system and the media. The place accorded to historical research at the Papon trial is revealing because a number of those present at the Aubrac round table demonstrated similar misconceptions of the work of the historian. The treatment of the Aubracs as historical witnesses could therefore be said to reveal a deep-seated ambivalence about witness testimony on the part of the French historical community.
