ALFRED DREYFUS
He was convicted for treason for passing secrets to the Germans and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island. However, he had been the victim of an anti-Semitic plot to cover up for the real traitor—a Christian. However the ”Dreyfus Affair” brought out the virulent anti-Semitism in France. When the truth was exposed, Dreyfus was pardoned, and reinstated in the military, but 11 years in Devils Island had taken its toll on his heath, and he was retired as a result of his disability.
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most controversial and polarizing political dramas in modern French history. The incident has gone down in history as the Dreyfus Affair, the reverberations from which were felt throughout Europe. It ultimately ended with Dreyfus's complete exoneration.
