Jewish grandmother banned from telling school how French police handed her over to Nazis

the film wants to emphasize on the dark side though, there have been several films about Resistants, what makes this one original is that it clearly shows some of the hidden aspects that were hardly shown previously.

 

Skipper;
Collaboration? Well given the system of mass extortion that NAZI forced on all the countries they captured it is amazing that there wasn't more collaboration than there was. People do have to eat, after all. This should only go to accentuate the courage of the covert resisters.
The occupations were much worse in the East. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNEJ7qe1l8o
JEffinMNUSA

 

You'd be interested to read some of my archives then. They are about the average resistant , those with no network, who had no support, no money and were suspected by their neigbours. Some of them took incredible risks for nothing. I have one example of this local leader asking two men to sabotage telegraphe poles . Having no explosives , they were given an old rusted saw instead, it took them two hours to saw four poles and even when those fell, the line still did not break but just bent towards the floor. They were almost caught and had to hide and lost precious time. It was almost day when thye finally managed, then they got a few hours sleep and on their way to work they realized the line had already been repaired......

 

France gets alot of criticism for colloboration and deservedly so. But I think a little differently about this.

A more shameful event in my eyes was the collapse of resistence by the french military. 6 weeks? Are you kidding me? I know that the French were tired of war and "bled white" by WWI. But a country of France's stature should have lasted longer than 6 weeks.

Any criticism of the French in occupation has to be seen through the lens of a defeated nation--spiritually and militarily. I couldn't damn the civilians when the soldiers and politicians permitted the nation to collapse so easily.It is the leaders and warriors who are a nations' backbone. If they fail a nation has no way to stand.

However, France's greatest failure was their response to Hitler's re-militarization of the Rhineland in 1936. Hitler even stated that a strong response by France would have meant a German withdrawal.That is where I think France deserves the most criticism.

Critiquing civilians who are being governed by as ruthless of a occupier as there ever was, seems ridiculous in light of the facts.The French government , not the French people, should be the subject of historical scorn.

I don't want to single out France, however. The US and England also played significant roles in the development of the Holocaust and WWII. Both of the english speaking nations have to engage in some self evaluation as well.

I give the French credit for this. Self criticism is key for growth as a person and indeed, as a nation.

 

They did not have much support from GB. Remilitarization of the Rhineland

 

Perhaps. But any person who was paying attention could not fail to note the disturbing pattern developing regading Hitler and his lack of respect for treaties and law.

 

I more or less agree with you . I have however a different opinion about the military. If the battle of France was lost it was because of strategic and political choices , not because of the quality of the men. After all almost 100.000 men died during the battle of France and the Sacrifice of the French army at Dunkirk allowed the British to embark and stopped 7 decisions long enough turn Operation Dynamo into a success. 16 French Generals died in combat during this period and 3000 Luftwaffe aircrafts were downed (1000 surviving German pilots pow) . The men who fought in 1940 were the sons of the those who defeated the Germans at the Marne, Verdun and the Somme. This time they were however ill equipped by a weak government and over confident because on paper they were considered the strongest army in the world. Unfortunately bravery can't do much when you have no air support, ill experienced officers and run out of ammuntion .