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L'Interprète: Dans les traces d'une cour martiale américaine
No story of World War II is more triumphant than the liberation of France, made famous in countless photos of Parisians waving American flags and kissing GIs, as columns of troops paraded down the Champs Élysées. Yet liberation is a messy, complex affair, in which cultural understanding can be as elusive as the search for justice by both the liberators and the liberated. Occupying powers import their own injustices, and often even magnify them, away from the prying eyes of home.
One of the least-known stories of the American liberation of France, from 1944 to 1946, is also one of the ugliest and least understood chapters in the history of Jim Crow. The first man to grapple with this failure of justice was an eyewitness: the interpreter Louis Guilloux. Now, in The Interpreter, prize-winning author Alice Kaplan combines extraordinary research and brilliant writing to recover the story both as Guilloux first saw it, and as it still haunts us today.
When the Americans helped to free Brittany in the summer of 1944, they were determined to treat the French differently than had the Nazi occupiers of the previous four years. Crimes committed against the locals were not to be tolerated. General Patton issued an order that any accused criminals would be tried by court-martial and that severe sentences, including the death penalty, would be imposed for the crime of rape. Mostly represented among service troops, African Americans made up a small fraction of the Army. Yet they were tried for the majority of capital cases, and they were found guilty with devastating frequency: 55 of 70 men executed by the Army in Europe were African American -- or 79 percent, in an Army that was only 8.5 percent black.
Alice Kaplan's towering achievement in The Interpreter is to recall this outrage through a single, very human story. Louis Guilloux was one of France's most prominent novelists even before he was asked to act as an interpreter at a few courts-martial. Through his eyes, Kaplan narrates two mirror-image trials and introduces us to the men and women in the courtrooms. James Hendricks fired a shot through a door, after many drinks, and killed a man. George Whittington shot and killed a man in an open courtyard, after an argument and many drinks. Hendricks was black. Whittington was white. Both were court-martialed by the Army VIII Corps and tried in the same room, with some of the same officers participating. Yet the outcomes could not have been more different.
Guilloux instinctively liked the Americans with whom he worked, but he could not get over seeing African Americans condemned to hang, Hendricks among them, while whites went free. He wrote about what he had observed in his diary, and years later in a novel. Other witnesses have survived to talk to Kaplan in person.
In Kaplan's hands, the two crimes and trials are searing events. The lawyers, judges, and accused are all sympathetic, their actions understandable. Yet despite their best intentions, heartbreak and injustice result. In an epilogue, Kaplan introduces us to the family of James Hendricks, who were never informed of his fate, and who still hope that his remains will be transferred back home. James Hendricks rests, with 95 other men, in a U.S. military cemetery in France, filled with anonymous graves.
One of the least-known stories of the American liberation of France, from 1944 to 1946, is also one of the ugliest and least understood chapters in the history of Jim Crow. The first man to grapple with this failure of justice was an eyewitness: the interpreter Louis Guilloux. Now, in The Interpreter, prize-winning author Alice Kaplan combines extraordinary research and brilliant writing to recover the story both as Guilloux first saw it, and as it still haunts us today.
When the Americans helped to free Brittany in the summer of 1944, they were determined to treat the French differently than had the Nazi occupiers of the previous four years. Crimes committed against the locals were not to be tolerated. General Patton issued an order that any accused criminals would be tried by court-martial and that severe sentences, including the death penalty, would be imposed for the crime of rape. Mostly represented among service troops, African Americans made up a small fraction of the Army. Yet they were tried for the majority of capital cases, and they were found guilty with devastating frequency: 55 of 70 men executed by the Army in Europe were African American -- or 79 percent, in an Army that was only 8.5 percent black.
Alice Kaplan's towering achievement in The Interpreter is to recall this outrage through a single, very human story. Louis Guilloux was one of France's most prominent novelists even before he was asked to act as an interpreter at a few courts-martial. Through his eyes, Kaplan narrates two mirror-image trials and introduces us to the men and women in the courtrooms. James Hendricks fired a shot through a door, after many drinks, and killed a man. George Whittington shot and killed a man in an open courtyard, after an argument and many drinks. Hendricks was black. Whittington was white. Both were court-martialed by the Army VIII Corps and tried in the same room, with some of the same officers participating. Yet the outcomes could not have been more different.
Guilloux instinctively liked the Americans with whom he worked, but he could not get over seeing African Americans condemned to hang, Hendricks among them, while whites went free. He wrote about what he had observed in his diary, and years later in a novel. Other witnesses have survived to talk to Kaplan in person.
In Kaplan's hands, the two crimes and trials are searing events. The lawyers, judges, and accused are all sympathetic, their actions understandable. Yet despite their best intentions, heartbreak and injustice result. In an epilogue, Kaplan introduces us to the family of James Hendricks, who were never informed of his fate, and who still hope that his remains will be transferred back home. James Hendricks rests, with 95 other men, in a U.S. military cemetery in France, filled with anonymous graves.
272 pages, Paperback
First published August 30, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
April 15, 2018
It has a flamboyant cover. The Army executed 70 of its own in Europe! Most of them black. That fact is significant.
But the book retreats immediately into pedantic legal arguments. Point taken, Mme Kaplan. But it's certainly not as open and shut as the cover proposes
But the book retreats immediately into pedantic legal arguments. Point taken, Mme Kaplan. But it's certainly not as open and shut as the cover proposes
May 15, 2024
Really a 3.5 for me, but rounding up to 4. Journalism mixed with some historical archival research and basic literary analysis. The comparison case studies provided a solid juxtaposition. I was hoping for a few more case studies of other individuals to help build and flesh out the argument.
October 11, 2019
I think the title of this book says it all. An important book.
May 14, 2019
Read for a paper, very helpful
May 23, 2013
In WWII, nearly all the soldiers executed for crimes they committed were black--although only 15% of the Army was black. Why was this?
This carefully researched book centers on the story told by a Frenchman who served as an interpreter for the Army judicial system in France. The story follows two accused soldiers through their crimes, trials and subsequent punishment.
The story is carefully researched, and filled with citations, so I was confident in its accuracy. Reading it, I get the idea that unwrapping the unfairness that black people experience in our society is a very complex undertaking, illustrated by the multiple ways that all aspects of the judicial system worked against our black soldiers.
Because of the careful journalism of this book, the story isn't the page-turner that a little fiction could have done for it. However, I measure a book by how much I think about it after I've read it, and this book has occupied my thoughts for several days since reading it.
One conclusion that I've reached after reading this book is how something can be terribly unfair while appearing to be constructed to be quite fair. I think that does happen in other areas of our society as well.
I recommend reading this book as part of your education on American society and how it has evolved...and how it hasn't.
This carefully researched book centers on the story told by a Frenchman who served as an interpreter for the Army judicial system in France. The story follows two accused soldiers through their crimes, trials and subsequent punishment.
The story is carefully researched, and filled with citations, so I was confident in its accuracy. Reading it, I get the idea that unwrapping the unfairness that black people experience in our society is a very complex undertaking, illustrated by the multiple ways that all aspects of the judicial system worked against our black soldiers.
Because of the careful journalism of this book, the story isn't the page-turner that a little fiction could have done for it. However, I measure a book by how much I think about it after I've read it, and this book has occupied my thoughts for several days since reading it.
One conclusion that I've reached after reading this book is how something can be terribly unfair while appearing to be constructed to be quite fair. I think that does happen in other areas of our society as well.
I recommend reading this book as part of your education on American society and how it has evolved...and how it hasn't.
August 15, 2012
The Interpreter is the re-telling of Louis Guilloux’s novel, OK, Joe. Louis Guilloux’s story was far more interesting. He served as a translator for the US Army during the aftermath of D-Day. The translator whose sole job is to translate between languages, not to judge, not to protest, not to attempt to change opinions was a witness to the inequities in the US Army and ultimately America in the 1940s. What he witnessed, what he was impotent to change, lodged in his soul. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the same way about Kaplan’s re-telling and her choice of defendants to make her case against the racist Army of World War II. To me, The Interpreter missed the nuances of Guilloux's story and seemed more like Kaplan had an axe to grind. By Kaplan’s own admission “The system in which James Hendricks was tried was about to be reformed…1946 the Vanderbilt Commission… decried the use of legally inexperienced officers to defend soldiers. In 1969, the protection was strengthened further…” The biggest tragedy was the lack of experienced counsel for James Hendricks and that rape remained punishable by death until 1977.
My favorite sentence was Guilloux’s comment about himself, “I am a drinker of streets.”
My favorite sentence was Guilloux’s comment about himself, “I am a drinker of streets.”
July 23, 2010
Well, this was a very interesting read, but it felt lacking. It was formatted along the lines of "Introduction to Story, Story, How I Researched Story". All of those parts were extremely interesting, but as soon as the story was over, I was half expecting and half hoping for a really big and deep conclusion. The epilogue could have been converted into a part of the story, rather than existing as a separate section, which, I think, would have helped with my feeling of incompleteness.
However, all of this aside, the story itself was very interesting. I knew very little about black soldiers during World War II (although, points for me, I did know that the army was still segregated) so it was a nice learning experience to read it. However, shocking as the stories may have been, it was not surprising that the Jim Crow laws and prejudices crossed the Atlantic with the army. I'd say that reading it was somewhat like a depressing confirmation of things I'd assumed/suspected.
However, all of this aside, the story itself was very interesting. I knew very little about black soldiers during World War II (although, points for me, I did know that the army was still segregated) so it was a nice learning experience to read it. However, shocking as the stories may have been, it was not surprising that the Jim Crow laws and prejudices crossed the Atlantic with the army. I'd say that reading it was somewhat like a depressing confirmation of things I'd assumed/suspected.
December 12, 2015
An interesting story about the American occupation of France (something that I don't know a great deal about) and the trial of two soldiers (black and white) accused of murder and the exception of the black soldier. In the end, Kaplan never fully engaged me/convinced me with her argument (which I'm still trying to figure out). Kaplan seems like a talented biographer and there is part of me that wonders if she would have been better served by focusing on EITHER Hendricks or Whittington and trying to use events in their respective careers to better press home her argument.... whatever it may have been....
March 12, 2015
-Strong storyteller with interesting perspective
-Ignores the racisms that were pervasive around the world at that time, focusing only on the Interpreter's perspective that was gained 20+ years after the war.
-Take the case comparison with a grain of salt--instead focus on the comparison of treatment of the trials and the extreme difference in outcomes.
-Ignores the racisms that were pervasive around the world at that time, focusing only on the Interpreter's perspective that was gained 20+ years after the war.
-Take the case comparison with a grain of salt--instead focus on the comparison of treatment of the trials and the extreme difference in outcomes.
April 6, 2015
A good book. Good read. Not necessarily good history, but engaging as a look into military justice and language.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews