Given the staggering enormity that is the Second World War, there must be hundreds upon hundreds of movies still to be made. Though none of them will ever be the one pointed to as the turning point in the effort stop the next “great war”. And if you haven’t guessed that by now I won’t make the attempt to disillusion you. And then there are still all the little wars to lament.
People can’t do these things. People do these things. And some will always do it in the name of morality. They rationalize the ignominious means in order that they be in accordance with the lofty ends.
And let’s not forget, the Nazis were far removed from nihilism. All of these terrible things were done [at least by many] in the name of idealism. The autocratic minds of authoritarians and objectivists.
This is just a speck in the war. Like we are all just specks in the grand scheme of things. How is it even possible to connects the dots between them?
We do things with the best of intentions. We do things because we understand a situation in a particular way. Then there are terrible consequences for what we do. And some carry the guilt until, finally, it consumes them. But others do not. Everything for them revolves precisely around intention and perspective.
wiki
Sarah’s Key follows an American journalist’s present-day investigation into the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup of Jews in German-occupied Paris in 1942. It tells the story of young girl Sarah’s experiences during and after these events, illustrating the participation of the French bureaucracy while also showing how other French citizens hid and protected Sarah from Vichy France authorities.
Vel d’hiv roundup in depth at wiki:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel%27_d%27Hiv_Roundup
trailer:
youtu.be/LzDZ9e3mGRE
SARAH’S KEY [Elle s’appelait Sarah] 2010
Written and directed by Gilles Paquet-Brenner
[b]Editor: I guess Chirac’s speech in '95 at the Vel D’Hiv has finally served some purpose.
Young Journalist: Chirac at the what?
Editor: Vel D’Hiv.
Young Reporter: How do you spell that?
Editor [laughing]: You’re joking?
Young Reporter: What happened?
Julia: On the 16th and 17th of July '42, they arrested 13,000 Jews, mostly women and children. They took 8,000 of them and put them in the Velodrome d’Hiver, in inhuman conditions.
Editor: Imagine the Superdome in New Orleans, only a million times worse.
Julia: A million times worse. And then they sent them to the camps.
…
Mike: No images? That’s weird. Normally, they were really good at that. They documented everything, the Nazis. That’s what they were known for.
Julia: Mike! This was not the Germans, it was the French.
…
Mother: Surely, they would never send the children to work camps.
…
Anna [to Sarah]: Think only of yourself. Yourself.
…
Father: Arrest my son! Please arrest my son!
…
Sarah [taking the key from her father’s hand after he’s been knocked to the ground]: See? Why didn’t you trust me? Why didn’t you give her the key?
Father: Why did you lock him in? Do you realize what you’ve done? Do you realize? Do you realize?!
…
Old man [enroute to camp]: See this ring? It contains poison. Nobody in the world can choose when I die. Nobody!
…
Father: Your mother must never find out, you understand? She was out that day.
Julia: What day?
[a long pause]
Father: The day the girl came back.
Julia: What happened to Sarah?
Father: From 1942 to his death, Dad never once spoke her name. Sarah was part of the secret. Whenever I asked where she was, what happened to her, he told me to be quiet.
…
Julia: In one week, you sign the deal of the century. No money worries for 150 years! Grown-up daughter, beautiful apartment from deported Jews…
Bertrand: What did you just say?
…
Colleague: Your article is amazing Julia. When I think all this happened right in the middle of Paris in front of everyone it’s absolutely disgusting.
Julia: And how do you know what you would have done?
Colleague: What do you mean?
Julia: If you had been there, how do you know what you would have done?
Mike: I would have just watched it all on television, you know like the bombings of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan…
…
Sarah’s mother-in-law: It was in 1966. The truck driver claimed she swerved towards him and there was nothing he could do.
…
Sarah’s mother-in-law: Their son left to Italy.
Julia: She had a son?
Nathilde: Willian, my half-brother.
Sarah’s mother-in-law: He was nine when Sarah had her accident.
…
Julia: I just wanted to know the truth.
Bertrand: The truth? The journalist’s quest. So where does it get us now, this bright shiny truth?
Julia: The truth has a price, whether you like it or not.
…
William: Dad, why didn’t you tell me? My whole life is a lie. My whole life.
Father: William, try to understand. For your mother, if you were Jewish, your life was in danger. Right after you were born she rushed out of the hospital. Went to church to get you baptized. We’re all the product of history.
…
William [holding up a key]: What’s this?
…
Julia Jarmond [voiceover]: And so I write this for you, my Sarah. With the hope that one day, when you’re old enough, this story that lives with me, will live with you as well. When a story is told, it is not forgotten. It becomes something else, a memory of who we were; the hope of what we can become.[/b]