The Caen Memorial changes hands
The two men know and respect each other. The warm embrace to pose in front of the photographers in front of the American Sherman tank bears witness to this. Kleber Arhoul, appointed director general of the Mémorial de Caen, does not intend to revolutionize the place. “On the contrary, it is a very beautiful, extremely healthy housee. I am going to be part of the continuity of what Stéphane Grimaldi did“.
This is not the first time that Kleber Arhoul has come to Normandy. In particular, he was regional director of cultural affairs from 2009 to 2013. His career as a senior civil servant then led him to the Nord Pas de Calais region where he was prefect for equal opportunities, before continuing his career at the Ministry of the Interior in Paris.
It is the first time, however, that he has taken the helm of a museum. But a museum he knows well and appreciates. “When I was director of cultural affairs in the region, I discovered it in all its complexity and all its usefulness“. But his interest in the Memorial goes much further back, when the young visitor he was in 1988 when it was created found the first answers to questions he still asks himself today.
Why does Europe have this immoderate taste for death?
“Why Europe, the European continent in its history, very old, but also unfortunately current, why does Europe have this taste which I describe as immoderate for death? Why Europe, which was the land where the rights of man and of the citizen were invented, why did this same Europe theorize the genocide and the disappearance of its fellow man?
Stéphane Grimaldi, who has led the Caen institution since 2005, will stay a few months alongside his successor. Time to pass the baton to him. The time also for him to complete the redesign of the courses on the Second World War.
While being part of the continuity, Kleber Arhoul already has ideas for the future. Like rethinking the course on the Cold War and also addressing the issue of decolonization.