GRACQ Julien - Lot 152

GRACQ Julien AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED CONCERNING THE FINALY AFFAIR. Circa 1953. 1 page in-8 in ink. Julien Gracq refuses to sign a petition concerning the Finaly affair. In 1944, Dr. Fritz Finaly and his wife were deported to Auschwitz, from which they never returned. Their two boys were entrusted to the nuns of Notre-Dame-de-Sion in Grenoble, then to the director of the municipal crèche Antoinette Brun, who a few weeks later refused to return the children to their Jewish family and had them baptized. The affair set the whole of France ablaze, and support committees and numerous petitions were set up. ... "I give you my full agreement to the Finaly affair. I'm not giving you my signature, and I hope you don't see the hypocrisy in that. Almost all of us have signed far too many demonstrations over the last 20 years, with the result that your signatures no longer have any influence whatsoever" ... "I've made it a rule to sign only protests against death sentences"...