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The independent young person: years of research in the national archives and a book later, you ask yourself as a conclusion: ” After all this, you say, “What can we consider?” ». Should we understand that, the book published, the work is not over?
Sabrina Abda : The book is only a step in the fight that we decided, my cousin salim and I, to lead. It has been years that we have gone there without the slightest discouragement. There is the memory of our grandfather, our two uncles and all the victims murdered and burned in Guelma and elsewhere during these bloody days in May 1945. Our parents suffered all their lives to the point of suffering from the aftermath. If we have assigned ourselves the mission of leading this fight, it is to honor the memory of the Abda family and the memory of the bloody and massive repression of the days of May 1945. It is a state crime that we will continue to denounce.
Our memory of memory which is added to a history work carried out for many years by historians will not stop with this book. It is our duty to head for this mission. Cultivating this painful memory, maintaining it by multifaceted actions is our ambition. We hold there, we are determined to translate it into acts by various activities: conference-debate in Algeria and France, encouragement of initiatives intended to consolidate the registration of May 1945 in public space, maintenance of already existing memory places, dialogue with associations and local authorities in Algeria to imagine other initiatives (local museums, memory tourism, etc.).
When you point the ” State crime ”, you write “all knew, and they have been silent”.
The militia set up by sub-prefect André Achiary well before May 1945-historians documented this episode-has never been on the bench of the accused of the courtroom and history. It is criticized to a lesser extent. She was not tried. From the government to the Governor General, through the bosses of the army, the gendarmerie and the security services, the officials who were in power and in the responsibilities have never been really intrigued. Surveys have been engaged but they never succeeded. Archives that I have consulted – including a telegram from the Governor General – show it bluntly: the government has spoken of illegal executions. It concerned my two uncles and their comrades. The executive recognized the facts without judging the culprits. It is deeply unfair. So yes, justice has not been done. The state knew. The surveys launched in length.
Has the consultation of the national archives funds been commensurate with your expectations?
I scoured part of the archives relating to events. There are thousands, sometimes well hidden. I would need a lifetime to examine them carefully. I have extracted a good number that tells a story, the one I deliver to readers in this book. Between ” secret ” documents, telegrams, reports, press clippings, I screened some 700 documents. I have not read all the documents of the fund dedicated to the events of May 1945. Even if certain sources remain inaccessible, I now understand the story that I have been hidden in the courses and in the history manuals that accompanied me during my school life. I am repeating, a state crime. A crime that amputated my family and bereaved thousands and thousands of families.
Among other documents published in appendices, you show visuals from the Abda family album. Among these shots, a family photo.
Indeed ! This photo alone sums up the collective martyr experienced by ours: the ABDA family poses in full. Dated 1936 nine years before the tragedy of 1945, she 0 fell in the spotlight my grandfather, my grandmother and the whole siblings, my aunts and my paternal uncles. Unique, this photo is the only visual that immortalizes – for posterity – the members of the family of Amor Abda all together. I wanted to share it with the readers because it sums up our history, that of a family struck by a drama which they have never grieved. I like this photo. It was the time before, the time when they were all alive.