Talk:Irène Némirovsky

Accuracy?
This article needs some serious fact checking by someone familiar with Irène Némirovsky and/or someone who has access to the appropriate reference materials. The article states, for example, "French citizenship was denied to the Némirovskys in 1938, and they were soon required to wear the Yellow badge." These two matters are unrelated. Why are they in the same sentence? The denial of citizenship had nothing to do with the Yellow Star requirement, which didn't come for another two-plus years and after Germany invaded France. This sentence makes it sound as if, because the French government denied her citizenship, she was required to wear a Yellow Star.

Holocaust deniers roam all over the web for the tiniest of errors regarding the Nazi era. When they find sloppy scholarship like this, they pounce on it and use it to their advantage. Greater care should be taken in writing article on topics like this; rushing a sloppy article online here with factual errors serves no purpose and is, in fact, counter-productive and destructive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.232.195.108 (talk • contribs)


 * Your comment seems (to me personally) slightly "over the top". I see no factual error in what you quote. The article seems to be a translation from the French Wikipedia article. I think the French article and the translation are both pretty good. But you are quite right that this particular sentence, in the translation, is misleading. The two facts in it occur several sentences apart in the original French article, because they relate to events two years apart. I guess that someone combined them into one sentence because the refusal of citizenship and the Yellow Star both demonstrate aspects of 1930s antisemitism: they are related, therefore, but not as closely as this wording would suggest. I'll revise the text. And rew D alby  16:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It is indeed not good to put that in the same sentence as the refusal of French citizenship was an act by the French government and the yellow badge was one by the German occupiers who conquered Paris in June 1940. We do not know what reason the French government had for denying citizenship. Were they giving French citizenship out easily? I don't think so. I have researched the time and place extensively for my historical novel about Nadezhda Plevitskaya who was implicated in the disappearance of General Miller (a Russian) in September 1937. There were disappearances of ex-Russians before, there were also shootings in the street, Krivitzky hunted by the Soviet secret service, General Skoblin's disappearance. He was singer Plevitskaya's husband. In a sense. the French had had quite enough of all these people and the many troublesome situations that arose. Plevitskaya was in the dock in December 1938. Eitingon (Freud collaborateur) went to Jerusalem in 1937, to avoid giving testimony in Plevitskaya's court case. (I jumped, too. Eitingon could not know on that day that his friend Plevitskaya would be caught and end up in the dock. His departure saved him from testifying, but he was not to know that at the time.)


 * Some desk jockey might have said, enough is enough - thinking they might encourage emigration to ..... saving the French authorities a lot of money and trouble. That's what the mood was like then and this is what I put to people's consideration. Ally Hauptmann-Gurski 121.209.53.9 (talk) 02:28, 18 January 2014 (UTC)


 * No one has rushed a sloppy article online. Keep in mind that anyone can write and edit Wikipedia, which means that anyone, including you, can improve it. Feel free to do so. And rew D alby  16:47, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

In the introduction we read, "Arrested as a Jew under the racial laws – which did not take into account her conversion to Roman Catholicism – she died in Auschwitz at the age of 39." There is a fundamental misunderstanding of Nazism here. The Nazis were interested in racial purity, not religious persecution. For a Jew to convert to another religion would afford absolutely no protection whatsoever under Nazism. Furthermore, the first clause in this quote states that she was arrested "under the racial laws"! There is a lack of basic logic here as well, since the sentence contradicts itself in the second clause. Her religious affiliation is a red herring in respect to the reason for her arrest. GnatFriend (talk) 22:50, 16 June 2022 (UTC)

Cause of Death
This article states "She was interned at Pithiviers and then transported to Auschwitz where, according to official papers, she died during an experiment in which petrol was injected interveneously into her bloodstream"

However the Irene Nemirovsky website states (like several other sources on the internet) "she was arrested by gendarmes and deported to Auschwitz in July 1942, dying of typhus a month later at the age of 39"

Which is true? Can the truth be put in this article please, together with an explanation on the why there is confusion on this subject. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.128.77.116 (talk) 15:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC).


 * There's no real confusion, just a bit of insidious vandalism. The article was edited on 28 February by 65.185.29.109, some paragraphs were taken out, and this invention was inserted. I think I've put it right. Thanks for pointing out the problem. And rew D alby  18:16, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Was she an anti-semite? http://www.nextbook.org/cultural/feature.html?id=414 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emes1400 (talk • contribs) 17:45, 11 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Information citing three relevanbt reviews/commentaries now added. Additional clarifying information is welcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.160.58.119 (talk • contribs) 09:32, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The article states "According to official papers at the time, she died a month later of typhus. Subsequent records revealed that Irène was actually gassed there by the Nazis." What subsequent records? Can you provide a reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by London2481 (talk • contribs) 03:07, 28 April 2010 (UTC)


 * This and other articles state her death from typhus: https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/nemirovsky-irene
 * Others claim she died in the gas chambers:  http://www.executedtoday.com/2012/08/17/1942-irene-nemirovsky-catholic-jewish-writer/  --Nordfra (talk) 13:04, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

First works of literary fiction about World War II
The article previously read, "They are possibly the first works of literary fiction about World War II." This claim is clearly not true. There is plenty of literary fiction about the Second World War, including Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman and Troubled Sleep by Jean-Paul Sartre. Poldy Bloom (talk) 06:32, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

What does this sentence mean - If it weren't for the seriousness of the subject it would read as a joke? "By 1940, Némirovsky's husband was unable to continue working at the bank after his death from the second world war– and Irène's books could no longer be published – because of their Jewish ancestry". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.45.92.124 (talk) 04:22, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Ms. Némirovsky's ethnicity?
In the lede, we describe Ms. Némirovsky as being Ukrainian, but many sources describe her as Russian instead. There doesn't seem to be a clear consensus either way. Perhaps those describing her as Russian regard as Russian all those born in Ukraine during the time it was controlled by the Russian Empire (and, later, by the Soviet Union)?

It's not a big deal, but I thought I'd flag it.

—  Rebbing    talk   15:25, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

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External links modified
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