To some archives and collections, additions are regularly received. One example is the collection on Egyptian Communists in Exile. The first items were received in 1992. Minor additions were received at the end of 2016 and in January 2017.
The second addition to the archive, made in January 2017, was donated by Joyce Blau, a French specialist in the Kurdish language and culture and a close associate of Curiel. Like him, she was born in Cairo and became personally involved in radical leftist movements, including Solidarité. This addition comprises ten videotapes, including a programme broadcast on 30 May 1998 to commemorate the death of Henri Curiel (Journée commémorative), a number of audio cassettes, and, most interestingly, a hefty file marked simply “Egypt Henri Curiel”. The file includes documents relating to political repression in Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s, and to early initiatives in the mid-1970s by Israelis and Palestinians to talk to each other. Of especial interest are a number of letters to the Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella.
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n a letter dated 21 June 1962, Henri Curiel, Joyce Blau “in exile”, Didar Fawzi, and others made an urgent appeal to the Algerian President Ben Bella. They thanked Ben Bella for his intervention with the Egyptian President Nasser on behalf of those Egyptian communists who had been detained owing to their support for the FLN. But they included a further appeal to Ben Bella. So many of the original fighters, those who had fought against the British in Egypt, against King Farouk, and perhaps also against Nasser, were still being detained in appalling conditions. Far from their relatives, in prisons in the open desert. Some had already been there for fourteen years. Would he be willing to intervene one more time? Attached to the letter are several lists of male and female prisoners, stating their education. There is also a letter dated 22 November 1962 from the lawyer Michèle Beauvillard urging Ben Bella to do more to help the prisoners. It is unclear whether Ben Bella acceded to their request.
Correspondence, lists of names and various other documents shed light on repression in Egypt under Colonel Nasser.
(Bouwe Hijma)