An invite to jot down the story of the photographers of occupied Paris

The exceptional story was revealed by my colleague Philippe Broussard in Le Monde in 2024, after 4 years of investigation. It has now been expanded upon in a brand new, detail-rich e-book, Le Photographe inconnu de l’occupation (“The Unknown Photographer of the Occupation”): the lifetime of Raoul Minot (1893-1945), an worker on the Le Printemps division retailer in Paris, who, in his spare time and with out authorization, photographed German-occupied Paris earlier than being arrested in early 1943.

This destiny shouldn’t overshadow a key query: How do Minot’s pictures evaluate to these already identified from the interval? Historians can have their say. But first, let’s think about their uniqueness. Minot belonged to a cohort of images fanatics working exterior of knowledgeable framework. His prints are small (6 x 8 cm) with scalloped edges, resembling the household snapshots collected in albums throughout Europe, however their content material is something however extraordinary.

Amateur images usually displays private obsessions. Yet Minot revealed nothing of himself in his photos; as a substitute, he selected a topic sometimes reserved for professionals. His work amounted to extremely flamable photojournalism. Between 1940 and 1942, he produced round 700 pictures of German-occupied Paris, at a time when merely taking a photograph on the street with out permission might result in dying.

A smuggler’s stance

Minot went additional by specializing in troopers in uniform. He needed to work unseen. Many occupiers had been photographed from behind. Two or three appear to take a look at him, however don’t detect his Kodak Brownie digicam, apparently hidden at his stomach. The framing is haphazard, and the themes are generally misplaced in a abandoned metropolis. There are not any occasions, solely fleeting moments snatched from the occupiers’ personal lives – uncooked, imperfect, unglamorous and much from spectacular. The solely flourish – or affectation – is the photographer’s shadow, which seems simply as soon as on the bottom.

In a time of warfare and censorship, this lack of qualities is the good energy of those photos: They brush up towards the reality, exhibiting what was not meant to be seen. Just as paparazzi declare to disclose “the truth” of a celeb away from their polished journal picture, Minot confirmed the Germans as they had been.

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