Alfred Dreyfus - French army officer of Jewish descent whose false imprisonment for treason in 1894 raised issues of anti-Semitism that dominated French politics until his release in 1906 (1859-1935)
120 years later, the time has come for the army to give Alfred Dreyfus back the honor and years that were taken from him, and I will personally see that it is done.
The Dreyfus story, surprisingly, proved riveting also to American readers, who followed the twists and turns of the legal case and the fate of Alfred Dreyfus in newspapers and magazines across the country.
In 1894 Captain Alfred Dreyfus, of the French Army, was accused of revealing military secrets and, despite flimsy evidence, was court-martialled and sent to Devil's Island.
Although he was eventually shown to be innocent, his treatment -- he was effectively exiled from his profession -- was compared to that of Alfred Dreyfus.
Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish officer falsely accused of treason in 1894, was such a polarizing figure in France because his opponents saw him as symbol of national decadence, of a nation whose sacred identity was being diluted by alien blood.
It is true that Alfred Dreyfus's widow, Lucie, survived the Shoah, hiding as a nun in a French convent until the liberation of Paris (she died soon after).