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This dissertation concerns the legacy of the Nazi forced enlistment during World War II and focuses more precisely on the case of Alsace/Moselle. Many of these French men, enlisted by force from 1942 in the German army, were sent to the Eastern Front and experienced Soviet prison camps. The aim of this thesis is to examine how knowledge and memories about forced enlistment and Soviet captivity have been remembered, commemorated, communicated and passed on since the Alsatian/Mosellan POWs (Prisoners of War) carried the tokens of enemies or traitors when reintegrating their motherland, France. Four strategies dealing with the experiences of forced enlistment and of internment in Soviet prison camps are examined. I present how the first and most common strategy, i.e. avoidance, is contributing to an individual and collective construction of silence. Then I argue that a second strategy, the constitution of families of remembrance, is helping them to articulate and narrate their experiences (third strategy). The fourth strategy is the organisation of pilgrimages (emic term) to the former prison camp of Tambov, where the majority of the Alsatian/Mosellan POWs were gathered during the war. This last strategy actualises the issue of the transmission of the war experiences given that pilgrimages bring together three to four generations. Through fieldwork observations of the journeys I show how the pilgrims engage with a sense of the past. They remember and reassess the meaning of the past in terms of the social, cultural and political needs of the present. The importance of place and the aspect of self-in-place are thoughtfully analysed in order to highlight the process of passing on the memory of Tambov. I conclude by arguing that the agents of remembrance interviewed for the purpose of this thesis are engaged in turning the tangible and intangible legacies of World War II into heritage. This is done by releasing the legacy of forced enlistment and internment in Soviet prison camp from the private/familial sphere and inscribing it in the public sphere. Yet, the agency of the former POWs and their descendants shows how to let pass a past “that does not want to pass” in a contemporary European context.

Depuis 2011, le droit local alsacien-mosellan est un principe fondamental reconnu par les lois de la République. Il est un droit particulier applicable ratione loci dans les départements du Bas-Rhin, du Haut-Rhin et de la Moselle. Ratione materiae, il régit un ensemble hétérogène de matières. En 1914, alors que la Première Guerre mondiale vient de débuter, la France commence à anticiper une éventuelle réintégration de l’Alsace-Lorraine sous la souveraineté nationale. La préparation de la désannexion du territoire cédé à l’Empire allemand après la guerre franco-prussienne conduit au maintien provisoire, en 1919, de la législation applicable dans les « provinces reconquises ». De 1920 à 1925, la réalisation de la désannexion entraîne ensuite l’institutionnalisation d’un droit alsacien-mosellan, puis sa consolidation. La formalisation du droit local alsacien-mosellan dans l’ordre juridique français semble dès lors apparaître comme une conséquence indirecte de la désannexion. / The local law in Alsace-Moselle is a distinctive legal system in effect in the Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin and Moselle French departments. Covering a heterogeneous group of topics, the local law became in 2011 a constitutional principle (known as « principe fondamental reconnu par les lois de la République »).In 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War, France started to anticipate a potential return of Alsace-Lorraine to the French rule. The preparation of the « désannexion » of the area annexed by the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War ended in the temporary upholding of the legislation in force in the « recaptured provinces », in 1919. Between 1920 and 1925, the carrying out of the « désannexion » of this territory brought about the institutionalization of an Alsace-Moselle special legal system, and then its consolidation.Therefore, the formalization of the local law in Alsace-Moselle within the French legal order seems to appear as an indirect consequence of the « désannexion ».