In July 1942, French officials
attempted to round up thousands Jews in Paris (and its surrounding region) to
appease their Nazi occupiers and reduce France’s Jewish population, they
captured around 13,000 (about 4,000 of which were children). The event is known
as the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup. The French government did not apologize until 1995.
The film is written and directed
by Rose Bosch
who worked with composer Christian Henson
and cinematographer David Ungaro.
The cast is very good. The film
stars Melanie
Laurent, and features an ensemble including: Jean Reno, Gad Elmaleh, Sylvie Testud, Anne Brochet, Denis Menochet,
and Adele
Exarchopoulos.
La Rafle is a powerful film
telling one of the many truly sad Holocaust stories of WWII. When the war
ended, President Charles De Gaulle promoted the idea of a France that did all
it could to fight and sabotage the Nazis while they occupied the country – a France
separate from the few who collaborated as part of the Vichy government, because
he thought that the country needed to heal and put the truth (things like the extent
of the Vichy government and the 1942 roundup) away for the moment. Instead, he
hailed the French people as all being involved in the underground resistance movement,
supporting the allied effort. Thus, France has grown up with this culture.
Films like La Rafle remind us what horrors good people are capable of and that
though it was Adolph Hitler and his Nazi party that wanted to eradicate the
world of those it deemed undesirable good people too were compliant and
apathetic. It reminds us that we must not simply allow evil to propagate because
the alternative is difficult. The story also tells too of thousands of brave
Parisians who hid around 5,000 Jews, also reminding us what good people are
capable of when they dare to have courage. Other films well worth checking out
in regards to France’s WWII occupation by the Nazis include Marcel Ophuls’s
brilliant documentary The Sorrow and the
Pity exposing many forgotten truths and the elaborate documentary series The World at
War, specifically the chapters entitled: France Falls:
May-June 1940 and Genocide:1941-1945.
Trailer: Here
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