Starting All Over Again

Abstract The Liberation did not end their struggles. After the war, Ségal reconnected with Hélène Gordon-Lazareff, a prewar colleague about to launch a new women’s magazine, Elle. To build its readership, Ségal developed one of its most successful rubrics, a weekly advice column. She also adopted a boy whose Jewish parents had died in the camps. Meanwhile Auclair lost her job when the government closed Marie-Claire in 1944 because it had continued to appear throughout the German Occupation. Turning to new projects, Auclair published a biography of Saint Teresa, the first in a series of best-selling biographies. After a 1954 law allowed publications whose cases had been dismissed to restart, Marie-Claire resumed, but without Auclair. Immediately letters began pouring in from readers demanding Auclair’s return. She negotiated her return from a position of strength, gaining a key concession: full freedom to choose what she wrote about.