Denis Peschanski is a historian, a specialist of World War II, director of research at the CNRS in Paris, and co-founder of the 11/13 Program. He is head scientist of MATRICE équipement d’excellence (a government supported program), a technological platform aiming to better understand the interactions between individual memory and collective memory. Laura Nattiez has a Ph.D. in sociology, is a research engineer at the CNRSMATRICE Program, 11/13 section and is an associate researcher at CERLIS, the Centre for Research Center on Social Connections. Francis Eustache is a neuropsychologist, course director at the École Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), and co-scientific director of the 11/13 research program. He has held research positions at the CNRS, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and HESAM University.
How does the traumatic memory of the 13 November 2015 attacks evolve in individual memories and in the collective memory? How do these memories feed off each other? Why do some victims develop post-traumatic stress disorder whereas others recover more easily?
Shortly after the attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris, the historian Denis Peschanski and the neuropsychologist Francis Eustache launched the 11/13 Program in an attempt to understand how, year after year, individual and collective memories were constructed. For this they undertook a study of unprecedented scope, gathering the accounts of 1,000 volunteers who would be questioned four times each over 10 years.
This book draws on the accounts of survivors and witnesses, police officers, firemen, and paramedics, politicians, etc. who were victims or had intervened at the site.