We present the case of French translations of a canonical work from the Holocaust Memory literature: Se questo è un uomo, written by Primo de Levi, an Italian and Jewish survivor of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The first translation, published in 1961, carried the stigma of poor quality, in addition to the fact that it took more than forty years to know the author in the francophone field. It only took place when the second one was published in 1987, getting all the recognition. Our aim is to prove that the 1961 translator did not do a deficient job, that she was strictly following the editorial guidelines established by the paratranslators.