War, judgment, and memory in the Basque borderlands, 1914-1945 / Sandra Ott.

ISBN:

9780874177428

9780874177381

Title:

War, judgment, and memory in the Basque borderlands, 1914-1945 / Sandra Ott.

Author:

Ott, Sandra.

Personal Author:

Ott, Sandra.

Publication Information:

Physical Description:

1 online resource (252 pages, [8] pages of plates) : illustrations, maps.

Series:

The Basque series

Contents:

Insiders, outsiders, and Trans-Pyrenean relations -- Urdax, a borderland moral community -- Basques in the Great War -- The roots of divided memories in Maule -- Class conflict, displacement, and fear of the other -- Xiberoans under Vichy -- The German occupation and resistance in Xiberoa -- The tragedy of Ospitaleku -- Resisting divisiveness through ritual in Urdax -- Denunciation, rumor, and revenge in sustary -- The divisiveness of liberation -- Uneasy commemorations -- Remembering the resistance in popular theater.

Local Note:

eBooks on EBSCOhost

Subject Term:

World War, 1914-1918 -- France -- Pays Basque.

World War, 1939-1945 -- France -- Pays Basque.

Geographic Term:

Pays Basque (France) -- History -- 20th century.

Format:

Electronic Resources

Electronic Access:

Click here to view

Publication Date:

2008

Publication Information:

Available:*

Shelf Number	Material Type	Copy	Shelf Location	Status
944.716081 22	1:E-BOOK	1	1:ONLINE	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

During the first half of the twentieth century, the French Basque province of Xiberoa was a place of refuge, conflict, transit, exile and foreign occupation. At the Liberation of France in 1944, many Xiberoans confronted ongoing local divisiveness, rooted in the interwar years, and faced new conflicts arising from legal and civic judgments made during Vichy and German occupation. This book traces the roots of their divided memories to local and official interpretations of what constituted legitimate judgment, legitimate behavior and justice during those troubled times. In order to capture a sense of the diverse ways in which Xiberoan Basques responded to the Germans in their midst, the author explores and contrasts the experiences of people in four different communities located within a fifteen mile radius.

Author Notes

Sandra Ott is an associate professor at the Center for Basque Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. She has an M.Litt. and a D.Phil. in social anthropology from Oxford University and lived in Europe for thirty years before returning to the U.S. in 2002. She is the author of a widely acclaimed The Circle of Mountains: A Basque Shepherding Community (University of Nevada Press), and numerous articles about Basque culture and, most recently, Franco-Basque-German relations during the Occupation. In 2007, she received the Millstone Prize, a national award for exceptional contributions to the study of French history.

Reviews (1)

Choice Review

Ott (Univ. of Nevada, Reno) blends history and anthropology to tell the story of the Basque villagers and shepherds of Xiberoa in remote southwestern France during the dark years of Vichy and German occupation. Ott has conducted extensive fieldwork among the Basques of France, and her deep knowledge of local society and its traditions and taboos allows her to paint an unusually rich tableau. She begins with a brief anthropological survey of Xiberoan customs, focusing on endogamous kinship systems, attachment to place, and shared moral codes that policed the community of "here-people" while zealously guarding against outside threats. The remainder of the book offers a narrative, grassroots history of the experience of war, occupation, collaboration, and resistance, highlighting the moral ambiguities and difficult choices of real individuals, whom the reader perceives in all their contradictions. Some Xiberoans sheltered Jews, Allied pilots, or resistants and guided these refugees to safety across the Pyrenean passes they knew so well. At the same time, they worried that active opposition to the Germans could bring collective reprisals against their tight-knit communities, as happened in one village with tragic results. An outstanding, deeply humane work of local history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. D. A. Harvey New College of Florida