When I used to teach modern history to high schoolers, we began our study of the First World War with a series of background lessons designed to create a bigger picture of the world which produced the War to End All Wars. Students were often surprised to learn that anti-Semitism didn’t originate with the Nazis in Germany, nor was racism against Jews limited to either that country or that time period in particular. Our case study of racial ideas in the years that preceded World War I was the Dreyfus Affair, a late nineteenth-century debacle of the notoriety commanded by the O. J. Simpson Trial almost exactly 100 years later. One of the big players in the Dreyfus Affair was the eminent French novelist Émile Zola, upon whose life this week’s Best Picture winner, The Life of Emile Zola (1937, Warner Bros.), is based.

Along with the rise of industrialism during the 1800s came what can be called “the cult of science.” Also a time of passionate nationalism, the nineteenth century married racism to its idol science to create a new breed of stereotyping. People were predestined by blood to exhibit particular characteristics associated with different races and to fulfill certain roles each race was destined to play. Assimilation was no longer possible. The value of each person depended on the composition of his/her tiniest cells. Racism had become biological.

Jews in particular were considered a threat because they were seen as “international outsiders,” living within different countries, but more loyal to a common international concept—their religion. In France, a Catholic journalist named Edouard Drumont took it upon himself to mass-market anti-Semitism, advocating the slogan “France for the French” and promoting the idea of ridding France of Jews, who were, in Drumont’s mind, physically repulsive, barbaric, and corrupt. Drumont’s racist views were in no way rare in France (or in many other countries) at this time in history.

This famous cartoon by Caran d’Ache entitled “A Family Dinner” was featured in the newspaper Le Figaro on February 14, 1898. The French text below the top picture reads, “Especially! Let us not speak of the Dreyfus Affair!” The text below the second picture reads, “They talked about it.”

Alfred Dreyfus was a Jew from Alsace. Because of this fact—and disregarding the additional facts that he was non-religious and completely loyal to his country—Dreyfus, the only Jew on the French army general staff, was accused and convicted of treason when an unsigned letter was discovered that offered to sell French military secrets to Germany. The case created an uproar in France. Everyone took sides—not without frequent and massive public displays of violence.

The front page of L’Aurore, featuring Zola’s infamous “J’accuse” letter

Prior to the Dreyfus Affair and his involvement in it, Zola was no stranger to controversy and public scrutiny. His vast array of literary works consistently questioned the status quo of society and provoked the ire of French authorities on numerous occasions. But it was perhaps his open letter to the President of the French Republic entitled “J’accuse” (“I accuse”) and published in the newspaper L’Aurore in 1898 after Dreyfus’s wrongful conviction for treason and the blatantly fabricated acquittal of the real traitor that cemented Zola’s place in history as an advocate for the socially inferior and those denied justice. For his stand for transparency and integrity in the French justice system, Zola was tried and convicted of libel. Sentenced to a fine and prison term, Zola fled to England, only returning to France upon the reopening of the Dreyfus case in 1900.

Though Dreyfus was retried in a second court martial (this one public, opposed to the original private one), he was convicted yet again and sentenced to ten years of imprisonment, despite outrageously clear evidence of his innocence. The French president, sensing correctly that much of the world was outraged by this miscarriage of justice and that the Dreyfus Affair had stirred up enough dissension, annulled Dreyfus’s sentence. Years later in 1906, the French supreme court declared Dreyfus innocent, and he was even permitted to rejoin the army. Zola did not live to see this act of justice for the man for whom he had risked his reputation and life. Tragically, he passed away in 1902, the apparent victim of carbon monoxide poisoning (though there are many who believe he was murdered).

By 1937, the year of the release of The Life of Emile Zola, Zola had been deceased for 35 years, Dreyfus dead for only 2 years. Yet their story and their cause were still more than relevant at the time of the film’s release. Only two years previously, the Nazi Party had instituted the Nuremberg Laws, edicts regulating Jews within Germany. Jews were banned from marrying German citizens and displaying the national flag, among other requirements. Punishment for breaking these laws was hard labor and/or imprisonment. Ironically, German Jews were initially relieved by the Nuremberg Laws, falsely believing these were the worst of the restrictions they would have to endure under Hitler’s regime. The Nazis, in an attempt to prove their government was legitimate, decided to avoid further laws against Jews for the time being and instead embarked on a plan of military conquest, marching into the demilitarized Rhineland in 1936.

The real Emile Zola

When moviegoers first sat through The Life of Emile Zola, then, there was no thought of a place named Auschwitz or an event called the Holocaust. Perhaps some viewers remembered the Dreyfus Affair, as many of them were contemporaries of Dreyfus and Zola; but the film—and the Dreyfus Affair itself—exceeds particulars and transcends its own history to address massive social issues such as class and race, as well as ideals such as truth, justice, and defending those who can’t defend themselves. In watching the film, it doesn’t matter if one is familiar with the Dreyfus Affair or Émile Zola’s works. Just as The Life of Emile Zola provokes a depth of emotions and reactions of outrage against injustice for viewers today, so it also resonated with people in the 1930s who were just witnessing the rise of Nazi anti-Semitic persecution. The film garnered 10 Academy Award nominations (Outstanding Production, Directing, Assistant Director, Actor, Actor in a Supporting Role, Writing (Original Story), Writing (Screenplay), Art Direction, Music (Scoring), and Sound Recording)—the most of any film we’ve examined so far—and won three Oscars (Outstanding Production, Writing (Screenplay), and Actor in a Supporting Role for Joseph Schildkraut, who played Dreyfus).

For those who want to check out more about Dreyfus’s story and how it has continued to haunt France and to represent the effects of injustice and racism on society, check out this article: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/80897/still-wandering. For more thoughts on The Life of Emile Zola and its significance, please check out the full post this weekend!