spockvarietyhour: little-brisk: pastmalebeauty: GAY HEROES Paris 1944 - Members of the French Resi

spockvarietyhour:

little-brisk:

pastmalebeauty:

GAY HEROES

Paris 1944 - Members of the French Resistance who found each other after being separated for 15 months. The authorities said they were an embarrassment, and were obviously drunk by the French victory.

That’s not what the caption says:

[Transcription]:Ils se sont retrouvés après cinquante mois de séparation. Celui de gauche a mené le combat en France, dans la clandestinité, risquant chaque jour une mort anonyme. Il ne savait même plus son vrai nom tant il en avait changé. C’est celui de droite qui le lui a rendu. Celui-là aussi a continué le combat dès juillet 1940. Il est parti de Fort-Lamy, il a pris Kouffra, le Fezzan, Tripoli, Tunis, et puis Paris. Le combattant F.F.I. et le combattant de l’armée Leclerc s’embrassent dans l’ivresse de la victoire.

[My very literal translation]: They [have] found each other again after fifty months of separation. The man on the left fought clandestinely in France, every day risking an anonymous death. He no longer even knew his real name, having changed it so many times. It was the man on the right who returned it to him. He too had been fighting since July 1940. He deployed from Fort-Lamy, and [was involved in the retaking of] Koufra, Fezzan, Tripoli, Tunis, and finally Paris. The soldier of the F.F.I. and the soldier of Leclerc’s army kiss each other, drunk with victory.

“Embrasser” means “to kiss,” for starters; there is nothing about “embarrassment.” And “ivresse” is literally “drunkenness,” but the French is less judgemental than our puritanical English, and here I think is figurative and could as easily be translated “ecstasy.” The caption doesn’t make the judgement the OP made.

And “it was he who returned his name to him” is one of the most beautiful things I have ever read.

As a native french speaker I can confirm bottom translation is accurate.