Draft:Edith Bernardin
Edith Bernardin (21 July 1903 Vernaison - 15 August 1994 Schiltigheim) is a French librarian and historian .
She was appointed to the National Academic Library of Strasbourg (BNU); she headed a department of the Office of Private Property and Interests (OBIP) at the Liberation and supervised the restitution of books that the Nazi regime had looted in Alsace during the Second World War .
She was awarded the Knight of the Legion of Honor.[1]
Life
[edit]Édith Bernardin studyied literature in Paris and Lyon. She was appointed librarian at the National and University Library in Strasbourg (BNU) in 1928.
The advent of Nazism in Germany and the rise of tensions in Europe in the 1930s led the BNU to prepare a plan to withdraw its staff and collections to the Massif Central. The evacuation was activated a few days before the outbreak of the Second World War. From 27 August 1939, Édith Bernardin was responsible for organizing, with her colleagues Marie Kuhlmann and Serge Fischer, the reception of documents sent to Puy-de-Dôme . The services of the BNU and the University of Strasbourg were moved to the rectorate of the Clermont-Ferrand academy . Throughout the conflict, she participated in the activity of her institution to assist refugee Alsatian students and researchers.[2]
In 1945, Édith Bernardin returned to Strasbourg and took part in the reorganization of the BNU, which returned to its evacuated premises. She coordinated the Strasbourg office of the Office of Private Property and Interests (OBIP) from 1947.[3] She was responsible for directing the service for the restitution of books that the Nazi authorities had looted during the annexation of Alsace by the Reich. Her mission was to sort the works that the German administration of the library had abandoned three years earlier at the Liberation of Strasbourg in 1944, and then to identify their legitimate owners. She was brought into contact with Jenny Delsaux, supervising the books subcommittee within the Commission for Artistic Recovery in Paris [4] Thus, 37,000 volumes were returned as soon as 1947, and more than 200,000 books were processed by the OBIP in Strasbourg by February 1948 : 125,857 volumes were then returned to their owners and 56,300 were assigned to rights holders. The service was repeatedly threatened with closure for budgetary reasons and Édith Bernardin said she was "harassed to put an end to the restitution operations". The sorting of these documents continued until the office closed on 15 June 1950.[5]
The librarian then continued her activities at the BNU, and from 1962 to 1973, was chief curator . She undertook a doctoral thesis in history entitled Jean-Marie Roland, Minister of the Interior. Essay on the Revolutionary Administration, 1792-1793 which she defended in 1957 .[6]
In 1962, she was appointed assistant to the administrator of the BNU, after Nobert Schuller. Sshe had full responsibility for the establishment until her retirement in 1973, during which she continued her historical research on civil status in Strasbourg during the French Revolution.[2]
Works
[edit]- "Jean-Marie Roland et le Ministère de l'Intérieur (1792-1793) – Etudes Robespierristes". Etudes Robespierristes – L'Association dite "Société des Études Robespierristes", fondée en 1908 et reconnue d'utilité publique par décret du 27 mai 1935, a pour but de rechercher et de publier tous les documents ou travaux relatifs à l'histoire de Robespierre, de la Révolution et de l'Empire. (in French). 2024-01-23. Retrieved 2024-10-19. [7]
References
[edit]- ^ Antonutti, Isabelle (2024). Bâtisseuses de la lecture publique: une histoire des premières bibliothécaires, 1900 -1950. Papiers. Villeurbanne: Presses de l'Enssib. ISBN 978-2-37546-181-5.
- ^ a b "BERNARDIN Édith Émilie". Fédération des Sociétés d'Histoire et d'Archéologie d'Alsace (in French). Retrieved 2024-10-19.
- ^ Poulain, Martine (2008). Livres pillés, lectures surveillées: les bibliothèques françaises sous l'Occupation. NRF essais. Paris: Gallimard. p. 180. ISBN 978-2-07-012295-0.
- ^ Delsaux, Jenny (1976). La Sous-commission des livres à la récupération artistique: 1944-1950 (in French). éditeur inconnu. p. 44.
- ^ Sumpf, Alexandre; Laniol, Vincent; Rolland, Denis (2012). Saisies, spoliations et restitutions: archives et bibliothèques au XXe siècle [actes du colloque, Strasbourg, 22-23 octobre 2010]. Histoire. Arts, civilisation et histoire de l'Europe, Groupe de recherche Frontières, acteurs et représentations de l'Europe. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. p. 248. ISBN 978-2-7535-1996-1.
- ^ Antonutti, Isabelle (2024). Bâtisseuses de la lecture publique: une histoire des premières bibliothécaires, 1900-1950. Papiers. Villeurbanne: Presses de l'ENSSIB. p. 119. ISBN 978-2-37546-181-5.
- ^ Brace, Richard M. (June 1966). "Jean-Marie Roland et le Ministere de l'Interieur (1792-1793) . Edith Bernardin". The Journal of Modern History. 38 (2): 201–202. doi:10.1086/239870. ISSN 0022-2801.