GAVROCHE SOUS LA BOTTE: LES MEILLEURES HISTOIRES DRÔLES, 1940-1945
Montreuil and Paris: Édition Sauba, [1945]. Item #43265
1st edition. Original illustrated paper wrappers, 12mo, 76 pages. Includes many cartoons. 18 cm. In French. Title translates as, “Gavroche [the People of Paris] Under the Boot: The Best Funny Stories, 1940-1945.”
An extensive collection of Anti-Nazi jokes and cartoons published just after liberation but collected during the Nazi occupation of Paris by M. Fougerole and Joseph Hémard, with cartoon illustrations by Hémard.
Gavroche is a fictional character in the 1862 novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo, a boy who lives on the streets of Paris. His name has become a synonym for an urchin or street child as well as a kind of spirit of French rebellion. In the title “Gavroche” thus means something like, “the rebellious Parisiens”
Organized by year and thus showing the gallows humor growing darker and darker, the collection includes 75 cartoons and jokes mocking the German character, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Himmler, and other senior figures of the German Reich, as well as the Gestapo and the German army.
The satire targets the Nazi obsession with hatred of the Jews, German manners, the blind obedience of the German people to the Führer, the conduct of the German military on various battlefronts, and more. We don’t know of a more extensive anthology of anti-Nazi jokes from the period.
The Author’s introduction notes:
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“These stories... you will better appreciate their flavor and you will understand what they represent for us when you know the conditions under which they were collected:
Since our defeat in June 1940, I received a visit to my office almost every month from a friend, the well-known illustrator Joseph Hémard. He is not only a talented painter: he is also a phlegmatic, deadpan and witty storyteller. Too often, when the resounding successes of the German armies were announced, the ambient heaviness, the feeling of suffocation, that foretaste of the grave that we all experienced during the occupation, weighed on our conversations.
So, to react and try to lighten the atmosphere, we told the good stories that we had each gleaned on our own. To be fair, I must acknowledge that Joseph Hémard was the main source of these stories. It was he who wrote them down at my request because, as early as 1942, I had decided to publish them in a small collection for the clients and friends of Laboratoires Sauba, when France was liberated, while awaiting the resurrection of ‘No Broyer du Noir’ [i.e. ‘No Brooding’].
Hitler and Mussolini, as well as their subjects, are the main victims of these stories. However, some may seem caustic to our English friends. They have too good a sense of humor not to forgive us for them, especially since, if at certain times, public opinion has scorned them, it is because we were waiting too impatiently for their arrival on French soil.
These stories, collated from year to year, mark the stages of a harsh ordeal. Brought forth by the popular spirit, carried from mouth to mouth, they prove to the eyes of the world that never, even in the darkest hours, have the people of France been morally submissive to the invader.
Mr. Fougerole”
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OCLC: 68045900. OCLC locates only 3 copies worldwide (McMaster, USaskatchewan, Cambridge), none in the US
Light wear, bright colors, bright paper and illustrations, strong binding. Very Good Condition (B) (Holo2-163-14-XX-XE-CC-).
Price: $500.00