<i>Holding On and Holding Out: Jewish Diaries from Wartime France</i> Ariane Santerre
Bibliographic record
Abstract
When one picks up Anne Freadman’s Holding On and Holding Out: Jewish Diaries from Wartime France and reads its back cover of quoted reviews from two scholars working in history departments at US colleges, one could easily conclude that the book is primarily concerned with a historical approach. In truth, Freadman’s book offers a very different take than what is advertised by this misleading editorial choice. The reader can instead expect a rich, in-depth study of the language used by an important selection of Jewish diary authors that depict wartime France and its evolution over time. This work is the product of a linguist versed in the subtleties of French culture, and, as mentioned immediately in the preface, it is not a history book; however, through its investigation of a vast array of diaries written by Jews during World War II in Occupied and Vichy France, it does contribute actively to the field of history, though perhaps more importantly to linguistics, literature, and Holocaust studies. The book uncovers the many facets of history through the eyes of individuals, or “l’histoire à hauteur humaine.” Its originality centers around its exploration of diaries as a genre. Freadman usefully distinguishes diaries from autobiographies, and, always mindful of their societal context, analyzes the texts as narrative constructs. Many of her analyses are intertwined with clear and nuanced historical insights, such as critiques of the role of the Union générale des israélites de France (UGIF) in the Free Zone. Freadman employs a rigorous close reading of the texts that aims to underline the writers’ perceptions of time and identity. One of the strengths of Freadman’s approach lies in the societal dimension of her analysis, as she unfolds, for example, the complex social identities (with their inherent beliefs and reflexes) of assimilated French Jews of the haute-bourgeoisie through Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar’s evocation of the Dreyfus affair. In her analysis of Jean-Jacques Bernard’s memoir in which he states that, had he died during his incarceration, “‘I would have died for France; I do not wish to be a victim claimed by Judaism’” (p. 24), Freadman also clearly explains the common confusion surrounding notions of “race,” “nation,” and “universality” among Jews educated under the values of the Republic.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.035 | 0.005 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".