Anthelme mangin biography

Anthelme Mangin (19 March 1891 – 10 September 1942), real name Octave Félicien Monjoin, was an amnesiac French veteran of the First World War who was the.
Anthelme Mangin, real name Octave Félicien Monjoin, was an amnesiac French veteran of the First World War who was the subject of a long judicial process involving dozens of families who claimed him as their missing relative.
His real name was Octave Monjoin, and he came from the town of Saint-Maur in the Indre département of central France.

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Directed by JOËL CALMETTES
Adapted From A novel By JEAN-YVES LE NAOUR (HACHETTE LITTÉRATURES)

Throughout the inter-war period, one man fascinated the French public. His photo was frequently seen on the front page of the papers. He inspired writers, playwrights and filmmakers. His name was Anthelme Mangin. His nickname was ´The living unknown soldier´. He was an amnesiac soldier who returned to France from a German prison camp in 1918. As soon as his existence became known, he was saddled with the pain of the three hundred thousand families of soldiers who never returned, who were unable to grieve. Dozens of women, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and children claimed him as their missing loved one, despite his physical appearance, age and education. There was even a trial where a dozen families tried to get him formally identified as their kin, before the Second World War interrupted the proceedings. Moved from asylum to asylum, he would finally die alone and abandoned by all in Sainte-Anne, in 1942.

A film by Joël Calmettes
Cinematographer : Sébastien Buchmann
Chie

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Anthelme Mangin

Anthelme Mangin (19 March 1891 – 10 September 1942), real name Octave Félicien Monjoin, was an amnesiac French veteran of the First World War who was the subject of a long judicial process involving dozens of families who claimed him as their missing relative. In 1938 he was determined to be the son of Pierre Monjoin and Joséphine Virly.

After the war

On 1 February 1918, a French soldier was repatriated from Germany and arrived at the Gare des Brotteaux in Lyon, suffering from amnesia and lacking military or civil identification documents. When questioned, he gave a name that sounded something like Anthelme Mangin, and this became the name by which he is known to history. He was diagnosed with dementia praecox and placed in an asylum in Clermont-Ferrand.

In January 1920 Le Petit Parisien published a front-page feature with photos of several asylum patients, including Mangin, in the hope that their families would recognize them. The Mazenc family of Rodez claimed that he was their son and brother Albert, who disappeared in Tahure in 1915. He wa

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On 1 February 1918, a soldier was supposed to have been found wandering around the railway station of Lyon-Brotteaux. He had lost his memory, and had no papers on him that would provide his identity. When questioned, he seemed to say his name was Anthelme Mangin, and that he lived on the Rue Sélastras, in the spa town of Vichy. But there was no such street, and the man was confined in the asylum at Clermont-Ferrand.

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Seeking to identify his patient, the director of the asylum placed the man's photo in the Petit Parisien newspaper of 10 January 1920 (his photo is on the bottom right of the six). After the end of the war, some 300,000 men remained officially 'missing', so it is unsurprising that many, desperate for news of their loved ones, claimed 'Mangin' as a member of their family. A couple named Manzenc from Rodez were so definite in their identification of the unknown man as their son Albert, reported missing at Tahure (Marne) during the Champagne Offensive of October 1915, that the man was transferred to the asylum at Rodez (Aveyron).

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