Horst Rosenthal: un artiste «sans papiers»1 Préface – à la recherche de l’artiste en jeune homme

Abstract

This article retraces the trajectory of Horst Rosenthal (1915–1942), a German-born Jewish illustrator who sought refuge
in France, only to be interned in several French camps before being deported and murdered in Auschwitz. Few biographical traces
remain of the artist, apart from three hybrid text/images booklets he created in 1942 while imprisoned in the Gurs internment
camp: Petit guide à travers le camp de Gurs, Mickey au camp de Gurs, and La Journée d’un hébergé. These works—both ironic
and heartrending—expose the administrative absurdity and everyday cruelty of the internment system. Drawing on archival documents that Rosenthal himself completed while in detention— paradoxically echoing the bureaucratic forms he satirized in his
visual parodies—the article sheds light on the contours of a life fractured by persecution and underscores the subversive power of
his art. Through his autographic novels Rosenthal introduces two fictional alter egos—Mickey Mouse and a “little internee”—who
give voice to both the experience of humiliation and an enduring refusal to submit. The article demonstrates how these booklets lie
at the intersection of documentary testimony, satire, and veiled selfportraiture. Despite barbed wire and persecution, Rosenthal turned his pen into a weapon of dissent, restoring a sense of humanity to
those labeled “undesirable”.