The Sorrow and the Pity Page #17

Synopsis: From 1940 to 1944, France's Vichy government collaborated with Nazi Germany. Marcel Ophüls mixes archival footage with 1969 interviews of a German officer and of collaborators and resistance fighters from Clermont-Ferrand. They comment on the nature, details and reasons for the collaboration, from anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and fear of Bolsheviks, to simple caution. Part one, "The Collapse," includes an extended interview with Pierre Mendès-France, jailed for anti-Vichy action and later France's Prime Minister. At the heart of part two, "The Choice," is an interview with Christian de la Mazière, one of 7,000 French youth to fight on the eastern front wearing German uniforms.
Director(s): Marcel Ophüls
Production: Cinema 5 Distributing
  Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 6 wins & 1 nomination.
 
IMDB:
8.3
Rotten Tomatoes:
100%
PG
Year:
1969
251 min
231 Views


which nobody is denying,

concerning French Jews,

only 5%%% did not survive.

Just take, for example, the army.

Sir, excuse me for interrupting you,

but the statistic you quote,

and which I know well

refers only to

non-denaturalized French Jews.

However, there is another statistic

which is fatefully similar to yours,

which says

that of the non-naturalized Jews,

the foreign Jews

and the denaturalized Jews,

only 5%%% survived,

the same average as in other countries.

So I am asking you

if a statesman has the right,

even if he is a Frenchman

and a great patriot,

to make such decisions

concerning other human beings?

It was a tragic and dramatic situation,

in which one had to make the choice

which would save

the most human lives possible.

I was brought up in a middle-class family.

I went to Pasteur High School,

but for me, being Jewish wasn't an issue,

as we weren't religious.

And when I found out through others

that I was Jewish,

at first, I felt extremely sad

to be rejected by my community

and this country I loved,

not because I was born here,

but because I loved the history.

Then I took an interest in Jews.

I think that discussing statistics

in such a situation is impossible.

The fact that the French government

agreed to turn in French nationals,

and even people to whom France

had traditionally granted asylum,

proves that the government

wasn't worthy of its country,

and of all that we loved

and respected about France.

France is the only country in all Europe

whose government collaborated.

Others signed an armistice or surrendered,

but France was the only country

to have collaborated and voted laws

which were even more racist

than the Nuremberg Laws,

as the French racist criteria

were even more demanding

than the German racist criteria.

It's not something to be proud of.

I understand that history books

only present the positive side,

but historically speaking, that's wrong.

I was arrested for belonging to F.T.P.

I was arrested during an armed campaign.

-When you were 16 years old?

-I was 16, going on 17.

I was arrested by the French police,

and though I wasn't tortured,

I was interrogated for 18 days

in a rather physical manner.

I spent one year in a French prison.

In prison, I saw seven

of my fellow group members gunned down,

by squads of French policemen.

And I was given over to the S.S.,

with the other prison inmates,

on July 2, 1944,

by the French penitentiary administration,

the only one in Europe that stooped so low

as to give the Germans every inmate,

bound hand and foot.

I was deported on the "train of death,"

thus named because it sat for two months

being shot at by the English

who didn't know who was in it.

I escaped on August 25, 1944.

The train arrived in Dachau on the 27th.

That's when I found out

that my parents were there.

I hadn't seen my parents in four years,

and I was told they'd been deported.

France was full of concentration camps:

Lurs, Argles, Rivesaltes,

Fortbarreau, Drancy,

and many others.

Along with the Jews,

there were Spanish Republicans,

Freemasons and Gypsies.

And all these people were delivered

to the Germans upon their request.

The people who had participated in

these persecutions were large in number,

not to mention

those who participated indirectly,

for their own personal reasons,

to be rid of their competitors, etc.

Out of 130 letters of denunciation

at the Jewish Questions Committee,

at least half were written by doctors

who were informing the Gestapo

or the Jewish Questions Committee

against such and so

who was in direct competition with them.

One fine summer day, the Paris police,

under the supervision of the S.S.

and the Gestapo in occupied lands,

organized a day of Jewish arrests

in the capital.

This day was henceforth known

as the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv.

At that time,

the Germans had only planned on arresting

people over 16 years of age.

They weren't going to arrest children.

Yet the Paris police,

which organized July 16

with such enthusiasm that they earned

the praise of the Germans,

began arresting children.

So there were these 4,051 children

sitting in the Vlodrome d'Hiver,

crying and wetting their pants.

They caused the social workers,

mostly Quakers or Protestant women,

very serious problems.

As the Germans hadn't planned

on deporting these children,

they first deported the parents

to camps in France,

hence separating the children

from their parents,

while waiting for a decision.

Eventually, Eichmann...

No, it was Rthke,

Eichmann's representative,

who sent a telegram to Berlin

to ask what should be done

with these children.

While they were waiting,

Laval is reported to have said,

"The children must be deported, too."

This appears in a telegram from Danneker,

who was based in France.

This telegram can be

consulted in the C.D.J.C. archives.

In my opinion, there are two things

that prove it's authentic:

firstly, Pastor Beugner's attempt

to convince Laval to protect the children.

According to Beugner,

when he suggested evacuating

the children, possibly to America,

Laval replied, "It doesn't matter.

I'm preventing the disease."

I'm sorry for interrupting

when it's not my turn, sir.

But if these children had seen what I saw,

if they'd seen these poor people,

men and women,

young and old, people of every age,

piled up in these trucks,

shoved in like human cattle,

one on top of the other.

And I knew where they were going.

I knew. There was only one thing to do.

Had they seen this,

they'd have done what I did.

They'd have taken their handkerchiefs,

said to their employees,

"Excuse me. I'll be back in a minute."

And they'd have gone and cried.

Does anti-Semitism still exist in Auvergne?

-Yes. Still alive and well.

-What makes you say that?

For example, it's common

to refer to someone as a "Yid" or a "Jew."

-In student circles in Clermont?

-Yes.

Do you think the reason behind this

may be the fact

that the Occupation

isn't discussed enough?

In a big family like mine,

I have seven and a half children,

since the advent of modern times,

a father only has one main concern:

earning money.

There's no family conversation,

no family life,

because it takes time and we need money.

How many of these children survived?

-What was the percentage?

-None of the children made it.

I wasn't the first

to lead an inquiry on the subject

of what happened

to the children in the camps.

And I discovered that they were

immediately gassed to death.

My father-in-law was against repression.

Everyone knows that.

Even after his last meeting,

Pierre Laval's day isn't over.

As the Hytel Matignon falls silent,

the president knows

that tomorrow is a new day to start again

and has clearly defined his objectives:

In my opinion, this work is necessary,

and I will not quit

until France's salvation is assured.

So I ask you to understand

and try to support my work.

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Submitted on August 05, 2018

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