Gertrude Stein's "Missing" Vichy Years
Mark Karlin
Truthout
2 October 2011
http://www.truth-out.org/gertrude-steins-missing-vichy-years/1317135716

If you want to discover the real Gertrude Stein, two art
exhibitions now making their way to Washington DC and
Paris gloss over some shocking historic evidence.

Gertrude Stein was a complex, iconic, artistic figure:
an experimental writer, an intellectual salon hostess, a
collector and nurturer of modern artists, an openly gay
woman who admired authoritarian men. Her contradictions
abounded and so did contradictions in many of her
political statements. But there is no disputing that she
chose to stay in France during WW II at a steep price to
her historical legacy.

The smoking gun of Stein's ignominious behavior during
WW II lies "in a few yellowing notebooks tucked away in
the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale
University," according to Dartmouth Professor Barbara
Will. In her new book, "Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude
Stein, Bernard Faÿ and the Vichy Dilemma," Will details
that on these aging pages are Stein's translation of 32
speeches by Marshal Philippe Pétain.

Pétain was not a literary figure, but a WW I hero and
general who was the head of the collaborationist Vichy
regime - a puppet government of the Nazis. These speech
translations in Stein's own handwriting, according to
Will, included those "that announced Vichy policy
barring Jews and other 'foreign elements' from positions
of power in the public sphere and those that called for
a 'hopeful' reconciliation with Nazi forces." Stein also
promoted Pétain as the George Washington of France.

Stein and her famous partner, Alice B. Toklas, chose to
stay in the southeast of the so-called Vichy "Free Zone"
during WW II, instead of returning to certain safety in
the US. Yet, despite being Jewish lesbian Americans,
they - and Stein's priceless modern art collection -
survived the war without major incident.

It is the contention of Professor Will and many others
that Stein was protected by a noted French academic and
anti-Semite, Bernard Faÿ, who was a key adviser to
Pétain. According to Will, Faÿ was a Gestapo agent. Faÿ,
who was imprisoned after the war as a collaborator -
despite a plea from Stein on his behalf - wrote a memoir
in the '60s in which he claims that he convinced Pétain
to ensure that Stein and Toklas not only were left
unharmed, but were provided with necessary comforts by
the local police:

    Before the meeting ended the Maréchal dictated a
    letter to the sous-prefect at Belley, entrusting
    Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas to his care and
    directing him to see to it that they had everything
    needed to keep warm during the winter, as well as
    ration coupons for meat and butter. I came to Vichy
    quite regularly and I telephoned the sous-prefect to
    remind him of his instructions. During this horrible
    period of occupation, misery and nascent civil war,
    my two friends lived a peaceful life, They didn't
    lack courage, they didn't lack intelligence, they
    didn't lack a sense of reality and they didn't lack
    coal.

Faÿ, who was also gay, was enamored of Stein's intellect
and creativity and thought of her as someone who "rose
above" being a Jew. Stein, indeed - although her Jewish
identity is complex - generally did not identify herself
as Jewish and thought of many "types" of Jews with
disdain.

Both Stein and Faÿ were on the right flank in the
cauldron of European politics in the '30s. Both
associated many European Jews with communism, which they
dreaded. Both adored Pétain as a figure who would re-
establish a French state based on "traditional values."
In a break with many of the modern artists and literary
figures of her time, Stein supported Franco over the
Spanish Progressive Front. Franco won, with the help of
Mussolini and Hitler, becoming a dictator for decades.

Stein also detested Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the
New Deal, scathingly attacking them at times. She
vilified the notion of a "welfare state" and the concept
of the government under FDR intervening as a public
"organization," according to Professor Will.

After the German military invaded the Vichy "Free Zone"
in late 1942, Stein and Toklas still remained undeported
and untouched. Professor Charles Robertson of Smith
College informed BuzzFlash at Truthout that Stein and
Toklas "still moved about freely." In fact, even though
the Vichy government organized a national registry of
Jews at the request of the Nazis, the names of Gertrude
Stein and Alice B. Toklas did not appear on that list.

As Professor Robertson added, "Incidentally, so far as
Jews were concerned, officially, their nationality
didn't matter: they were Jews first." It is true that
France had the highest percentage of Jews who survived
the Holocaust and that the "Free Zone" was slower in
sending Jews to concentration camps (the Vichy police
generally rounded up the Jews for the Germans). But the
threat was palpable. Professor Will notes that in April
of 1944 - just 30 miles from where Stein lived - 44
Jewish children were "seized and deported to Auschwitz."
All of them were murdered.

New Yorker writer Janet Malcolm, who disclosed Stein's
relationship to Faÿ in her 2007 book "Two Lives,"
perhaps understated the case when she concluded that
Stein "did not behave well in World War II."

"The full story of the relationship of modernist writers
to fascist and pro-fascist regimes is just beginning to
be told and Stein offers a fascinating case study of
this relationship," Professor Will stated to BuzzFlash
at Truthout. "It is hard to get at the complexities and
dilemmas of this modernism/fascism nexus if we only see
a sanitized 'Saint Gertrude' image of Stein. She was a
complex, layered, in some ways heroic, but in some ways
despicable individual. The fact that her writing is so
obscure has allowed people to say almost anything about
her and up to this point the discussion around her has
been mostly hagiographic. Looking at the facts of her
life, her politics, even her aesthetic principles (which
are more conservative than you would think) allows for a
much fuller and more realistic picture of Gertrude Stein
to emerge."

Two recent exhibitions involving Stein in San Francisco
raise the question that Professor Will asks about
historic accountability when it comes to artists and
revered literary figures. Should how one lives one's
life as an artist or literary figure become a vital part
of an art exhibit? Does the "industry" of promoting
certain "hallowed" figures as branded artistic figures
need to be balanced by vigilant historical accuracy and
debate?

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) just
finished an exhibition of the modern art collected by
the Bay Area-based Stein family. The works of art
purchased by and given as gifts to Gertrude Stein were
prominent in the show. The exhibition drew blockbuster
crowds and it will go on to the Grand Palais in Paris
and then to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Almost concurrently with SFMOMA, the San Francisco
Contemporary Jewish Museum ran an homage to Stein, which
made it what some fans called a "Stein summer" in San
Francisco.

The Contemporary Jewish Museum exhibition was divided
into five "stories" about Stein. As described on the
museum's web site, "Through a portrayal of Stein's
contributions in her writings, patronage and lifestyle,
the exhibition provides an intimate look at Stein's
complex relationship to her identity, culture and
history." This exhibit is now on its way to the National
Portrait Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Museum.

Given the history of Stein's World War II years, the
protection of her art collection from the Nazis by
collaborationists, her entirely conflicted identity as a
Jew - that leaned sometimes into a gray zone of remarks
and thoughts that could be construed as anti-Semitic -
her promotion of the Vichy leader whose promulgation of
anti-Jewish regulations she translated, her fascist
leanings - all of these and more which came to a crux
during her WW II life in southern France - it is a bit
astonishing that neither museum elaborated on any of
this in their exhibits.

The SFMOMA had less explaining to do because they were
focusing on the Stein family collections, of which
Gertrude Stein's paintings are a major part. But, still,
one wonders how the exhibition can offer background on
the Stein family and ignore Gertrude Stein's
complexities and the reason that her collection was not
seized by the Nazis.

In fact, in one account, from Professor Will's book, the
Nazis were on the verge of looting Stein's irreplaceable
paintings by the great modernists - left behind in Paris
- but Faÿ intervened and the Germans backed off. (The
Germans considered modern art to be degenerate, but knew
the value of many of the paintings and sold them off for
cash in Switzerland, among other places.)

BuzzFlash at Truthout writer Bill Berkowitz attended the
SFMOMA Stein exhibit and was astonished about how the
museum dealt with the missing war years: "There was a
discussion of the years leading up to and including
World War II. Buried in that particular narrative was a
statement that Stein had spent the war years in southern
France. As I left the museum, I turned toward my friend
and asked him if he had noticed that sentence. He had.
It was, after all quite remarkable."

The SFMOMA's press office responded to Buzzflash at
Truthout's inquiry about the historical omission, by
saying: "Among the many fascinating aspects of the Stein
story, the museum hasn't seen this particular topic as
especially germane to our project, which looks at what
the family collected and why, their taste in art, their
relationship with the artists and the impact of that
support. If Gertrude's collection had been confiscated
during World War II, I am sure our exhibition would have
addressed it."

The Contemporary Jewish Museum, however - due to its
mission and the nature of the focus on Stein's life -
was much more glaring in its omissions. The first
question, of course, is why is a Jewish museum honoring
someone who had very mixed feelings about being Jewish -
and about Jews - without openly discussing these
complexities in the exhibit?

The second question for the Contemporary Jewish Museum
is how could it promote Stein as its featured exhibit at
the same time that it was holding a showing of the art
work of Charlotte Salomon? Salomon, according to the
Contemporary Jewish Museum, was "a young Jewish artist
from Berlin, [who] worked feverishly between 1940 and
1942 to produce approximately 1300 paintings before she
was arrested by the Nazis in 1943, transported to
Auschwitz and killed at the age of 26." She was five
months pregnant when she was gassed, after being
captured in, ironically, southern France.

Sonia Melnikova-Raich, who emigrated from the Soviet
Union 25 years ago, felt that this type of historical
"cleansing" of anything that would do damage to the
favorable image of Gertrude Stein was similar to what
she had seen done to some Soviet "heroes" and official
cult figures. In an article for the Bay Area Jewish
weekly, Melnikova-Raich charges that "the current
exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum 'Seeing
Gertrude Stein: Five Stories' noticeably lacks a sixth
story."

Indeed, the museum only provides a short romanticized
mention of Faÿ's relationship to Stein in the exhibit
and a few vague sentences about the World War II
existence of Stein and Toklas. (The museum wall text
does interestingly note, "German soldiers were billeted
twice to their home in the village." The museum's news
release about the exhibit can be read by clicking here.)

The Contemporary Jewish Museum's Executive Director,
Connie Wolf, issued a response to the exhibit's absence
of an elaboration on Faÿ and the war years that included
referring museum goers to the exhibit's companion book
available for purchase. BuzzFlash at Truthout also
received a polite response from Associate Curator and
art historian Tirza Latimer, who explained that the
reason more of this topic wasn't discussed was that it
was a visual exhibit. She also indicated that she had
invited Professor Will to participate on a panel when
the exhibit moves to the Smithsonian. The "lead" guest
curator Dara Solomon responded: "I want to reiterate
that the museum did not overlook the complex issue of
Gertrude Stein's Jewish identity."

Stein, like many artists and celebrities, has become a
thriving artistic "brand."

Artistic pilgrimages such as the two San Francisco Stein
exhibits bring extensive foundation support, large
crowds that pay healthy admission fees and booming gift
shop sales.

But trying to achieve historical transparency and
context is not about increasing attendance at
exhibitions and selling products; it is about seeking to
arrive at some semblance of the truth. Writers and
artists are not exempt from that scrutiny.

Primary research for this article was conducted by Sari
Gelzer, senior editor at Truthout.

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