The 1908 Monument to Bernard Lazare and Its Postcard Legacy

Abstract: This essay explores the efforts to memorialize Bernard Lazare, a key defender of Alfred Dreyfus, through a monument erected in Nîmes in 1908, which was vandalized nine months after its installation on the instigation of the antisemitic Action Française and later entirely destroyed. On the basis of postcards of the monument, which have preserved its memory, the article explores the symbolic elements of its design, offering insights into the political and social tensions of the time. These postcards, distributed widely, provided a medium for public engagement with his legacy and show the interplay between physical monuments and mass media in shaping historical memory, particularly in contested spaces.