Lecture: “Remember Barbara: Women Tell the Second World War”
Meeting between historian Annette Wieviorka and artist Maureen Ragoucy, around a documentary proposal that combines singular narratives and collective history of war in women. The animation will be provided by Nicolas Patin, lecturer at the Bordeaux Montaigne University. These women were children, young girls or adults during the Second World War. Today, they share their memories: exile, resistance, escape from the ghetto, imprisonment, deportation, loss of loved ones, but also moments of carelessness and lightness despite the horror, vulnerability and suffering. Their lives went from ordinary to extraordinary, yielding neither to fear nor to submission. These women tell without putting forward their own role, with humility, without evoking heroes or incredible exploits. Filmed at home, in their intimacy, their words, gestures and body language are transformed into testimonies that reveal invisible heroines. The evocation of their memories questions the notion of memory and operates as a rebirth of the past. Is it to go back to her life as a young girl, relive a moment of the past or undertake a more distant reflection on the memory? «Remember Barbara» is a documentary proposal made from 2011 to 2019 by photographer and videographer Maureen Ragoucy, who went to meet women in different countries to collect their history, between singular stories and collective memory. Do not miss the exhibition «Remember Barbara» which will be held in place Gambetta from September 11 to October 1, 2023. This project is supported by the Museum of Aquitaine and the equal mission of the city of Bordeaux.