Our Lucky Hours

45000 patients died in French psychiatric hospitals between 1939 and 1945 A single site escaped this carnage the asylum in SaintAlban an isolated village in Lozère What happened there for it to be an exception Retracing several decades in the history of this important site of psychiatry using precious archival films and the accounts of those who worked there Martine Deyres answers this question and in doing so shows how the political courage and poetic audacity that were practised there contributed to changing medicine and societys perception on madness Intersecting in the crucible of this movement called institutional psychotherapy were members of the Resistance artists doctors and philosophersincluding Paul Eluard Tristan Tzara and Georges Canguilhem