Robert Desnos, poet, resistant

15 July, 1944

My Love,

Our suffering would be unbearable if we could not consider it as a passing, sentimental illness. Finding each other once more will beautify our lives for at least thirty years. For my part, I'll quaff a good swallowful of youth; I'll come back full of love and strength. During work, a birthday, my birthday, was the occasion of long reflection for you. Will this letter reach you for your birthday? I wanted to give you 100,000 blond tabacco cigarettes, twelve dresses from great fashion designers, the apartment on the Rue de Seine, a car, the little house in the forest of Compiègne, the one from Belle-Isle and a little two-bit bouquet. During my absence, always buy flowers, I'll pay you back. For the rest, I promise it to you for later.

But above all, drink a bottle of good wine and think of me. I hope that our friends will not leave you by yourself today. I thank them for their devotion and their courage. I received about eight days ago a package from J-L Barrault. Hug him as well as Madeleine Renaud, the package is proof that my letter arrived. I didn't receive an answer, I  await it every day. Hug the whole family, Lucienne, Aunt Juliette, Georges. If you meet the brother of Passeur, send him my regards and ask if he knows anyone who can help you. What will become of my books being printed? I have many ideas of poems and novels. I regret having neither the freedom nor the time to write them. You can, however, tell Gallimard that in the three months that follow my return, they will  receive a manuscript of an entirely new kind of love story.

I'll end this letter for today

Today, July 15, I have received four letters, from Barrault, from Julia, from Doctor Benêt and from Daniel. Thank them and send my excuses for not responding. I am only allowed one letter a month. Still nothing from your hand but they give me news of you, maybe next time. I hope that this letter is our life to come. My love, I kiss you as tenderly as honor allows in a letter that will pass through the censor. A thousand kisses. Did you get the box that I ssent to the hotel at Compiègne?

Robert"*

The poet's letter was written from a concentration camp five months after his February arrest by the Gestapo. He never saw her again.

It is a fine time to remember resistants. Today let us remember the author, Robert Desnos. 

Before his political engagement at risk of life and limb against fascism, he was a luminary of the Surrealist movement. As André Breton said of him "Robert Desnos, he who among us has perhaps most closely approached the Surrealist truth, he who, in works yet unpublished and during the multiple experiments he offered himself up to, has fully justified the hope that I placed in Surrealism and summons me to expect yet much more"** He was, according to this pontiff, a "prophet" from his exceptional ability to give himself over to automatic writing in a kind of transe. 

    Desnos chez Breton in a transe

Breton would turn on him, however, "excommunicating" him in 1929, as he did so many others.

Desnos went his way nonetheless and continued writing, his poems, his editorials, his novels, his radio plays. By 1934 he was publicly committed to combatting the rising tide of fascism in Europe which directly led to his joining the resistance at the Nazi invasion of France.

This lasted till his arrest in February 1944.

He was taken from camp to camp, among them Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He continued to resist, even there, by any means at his disposal. Susan Hill relates an anecdote that has all the hallmarks of Desnos' courage, wit and wits. 

"One day Desnos and others were taken away from their barracks. The prisoners rode on the back of a flatbed truck; they knew the truck was going to the gas chamber; no one spoke. Soon they arrived and the guards ordered them off the truck. When they began to move toward the gas chamber, suddenly Desnos jumped out of line and grabbed the hand of the woman in front of him..He was animated and he began to read her palm. The forecast was good: a long life, many grandchildren, abundant joy. A person nearby offered his palm to Desnos. Here, too, Desnos foresaw a long life filled with happiness and success. The other prisoners came to life, eagerly thrusting their palms toward Desnos and, in each case, he foresaw long and joyous lives.
The guards became visibly disoriented. Minutes before they were on a routine mission the outcome of which seemed inevitable, but now they became tentative in their movements. Desnos was so effective in creating a new reality that the guards were unable to go through with the executions. They ordered the prisoners back onto the truck and took them back to the barracks. Desnos never was executed. Through the power of imagination, he saved his own life and the lives of others."

Somehow he managed to survive to the Russian liberation of Theresienstadt but was struck with typhus along with starvation. By pure happenstance the Czech student, Joseph Stuna put in charge of Desnos' ward, had read Nadja with its descriptions the poet's automatic writing and sleep transes. So when he saw "Robert Desnos, born in 1900, French nationality," he knew precisely who this was. He tried his best to care for Desnos's soul as well as body, bringing him a rose that grew outside the camp's confines and trying to communicate with him through the nurse, Aléna Tesarova, who spoke better French. What it must have been to him to become once more a name instead of a number we can but imagine, but his last words were "Yes, Yes, Robert Desnos, the poet, that's me."

Robert Desnos, Œuvres, ed. Marie-Claire Dumas, Paris, Gallimard, 1999

* « 15 juillet 1944.



Mon Amour,



Notre souffrance serait intolérable si nous ne pouvions la considérer comme une maladie passagère et sentimentale. Nos retrouvailles embelliront notre vie pour au moins trente ans. De mon côté, je prends une bonne gorgée de jeunesse, je reviendrai rempli d'amour et de forces ! Pendant le travail un anniversaire, mon anniversaire fut l'occasion d'une longue pensée pour toi. Cette lettre par-viendra-t-elle à temps pour ton anniversaire? J'aurais voulu t'offrir 100 000 cigarettes blondes, douze robes des grands couturiers, l'appartement de la rue de Seine, une automobile, la petite maison de la forêt de Compiègne, celle de Belle-Isle et un petit bouquet à quatre sous. En mon absence achète toujours les fleurs, je te les rembourserai. Le reste, je te le promets pour plus tard.

Mais avant toute chose bois une bouteille de bon vin et pense à moi. J'espère que nos amis ne te laisseront pas seule ce jour. Je les remercie de leur dévouement et de leur courage. J'ai reçu il y a une huitaine de jours un paquet de J.-L. Barrault. Embrasse-le ainsi que Madeleine Renaud, ce paquet me prouve que ma lettre est arrivée. Je n'ai pas reçu de réponse, je l'attends chaque jour. Embrasse toute la famille, Lucienne, Tante Juliette, Georges. Si tu rencontres le frère de Passeur, adresse-lui toutes mes amitiés et demande-lui s'il ne connaît personne qui puisse te venir en aide. Que deviennent mes livres à l'impression? J'ai beaucoup d'idées de poèmes et de romans. Je regrette de n'avoir ni la liberté ni le temps de les écrire. Tu peux cependant dire à Gallimard que dans les trois mois qui suivront mon retour, il recevra le manuscrit d'un roman d'amour d'un genre tout nouveau.

Je termine cette lettre pour aujourd'hui.

Aujourd'hui 15 juillet, je reçois quatre lettres, de Barrault, de Julia, du Dr Benêt et de Daniel. Remercie-les et excuse-moi de ne pas répondre. Je n'ai droit qu'à une lettre par mois. Toujours rien de ta main, mais ils me donnent des nouvelles de toi; ce sera pour la prochaine fois. J'espère que cette lettre est notre vie à venir. Mon amour, je t'embrasse aussi tendrement que l'honorabilité l'admet dans une lettre qui passera par la censure. Mille baisers. As-tu reçu le coffret que j'ai envoyé à l'hôtel de Compiègne ?



Robert » 

**Demandez à Robert Desnos, celui d'entre nous qui, peut-être, s'est le plus approché de la vérité surréaliste, celui qui, dans des oeuvres encore inédites et le long des multiples expériences auxquelles il s'est prêté, a justifié pleinement l'espoir que je plaçais dans le surréalisme et me somme encore d'en attendre beaucoup.