The children of Paris

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Movie
German title The children of Paris
Original title La rafle.
Country of production France , Germany , Hungary
original language French , German
Publishing year 2010
length 115 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 14
Rod
Director Roselyne Bosch
script Roselyne Bosch
production Ilan Goldman
music Christian Henson
camera David Ungaro
cut Yann Malcor
occupation

The Children of Paris is the title of a French-German-Hungarian period film produced in 2010. The script is based on a true story and reconstructs the events surrounding the raid and deportation of Jews in Paris in the summer of 1942, known as the Rafle du Vélodrome . The focus is on the historically guaranteed person Joseph Weismann (* 1931), embodied in the film by Hugo Leverdez .

action

Symon Ziegler ( Oliver Cywie )

The eleven year old boy Jo Weismann lives with his parents and his older sister Rachel and his younger sister Charlotte in Paris , a city occupied by the Germans. That is why, like other Jewish children, he has to wear the yellow star and, by order of the regime, will soon no longer be allowed to enter the park with friends to play. But the Nazi regime wants more. In order to force the final solution to the Jewish question , the rulers decide to deport all Jews from Paris as part of a morning raid. In order not to come into conflict with the more or less collaborating Vichy regime in France, initially only pro forma stateless Jews from Poland or the former Austria should fall victim to this deportation. The Weismann family, who come from Poland, is one of these Jews. On July 17, 1942, 13,000 Jews were rounded up by French police units. Jo has to watch as his friend Symon Ziegler of the same age and his mother are separated from the family group. Single mothers with their children are supposed to be deported to the extermination camps in the east on the instructions of the Nazi regime. Even Jewish World War II veterans are not spared in the merciless raid. Nevertheless, French Christians succeed time and again to pass off Jewish children as their own and in this way to save at least some children from deportation this time. 7000 people are brought to the Vélodrome d'Hiver by trams . Here they are crammed together under disastrous hygienic conditions for five days. Food and clean water are becoming scarce. The Jewish doctor Dr. David Scheinbaum and the Protestant nurse Annette Monod to help the people with great personal commitment. There are a few French people who help people in the midst of all the suffering. There are firefighters who give people access to water and a caretaker who pretends to be a Jew as his wife (Adèle Exarchopoulos) so that she can leave the racing bike stadium.

Five days later the Jews are deported to the concentration camp near Beaune-la-Rolande in cattle wagons . Although she doesn't have to, Nurse Monod accompanies her protégés there. There, too, she takes care of the children and has to explain to them why they are not allowed to leave the camp and at the same time not take the courage that they will one day be adults. Finally, the next stroke of fate comes for the prisoners. The regime has ordered the Jews who remained in France to be deported to Auschwitz . Since there are not enough trains, parents are mercilessly separated from their children and are the first to be removed. Before Jo is torn out of his mother's arms, Jo has to promise to survive. A few days later, the children are also supposed to follow their parents to the extermination camps. Jo intends to keep the promise to his mother and in fact he and another boy manage to escape from the camp. The next day he was horrified to see the train next to a railway embankment in which the children were being transported away from the Beaune concentration camp.

Paris, 1945. The war is over. The nurse Monod continues to take care of homeless children. One day she sees Jo at a meeting point for returnees and survivors of the concentration camps. He survived and was adopted by a peasant couple.

criticism

“Finally a film from France that shows that the Nazis had willing helpers in France too. The dark chapter of European history is illuminated here from a hitherto little known side. The authentic fate of Joseph Weismann, who survived the atrocities, served as the starting point. However, the director Rose Bosch can't really decide whose story she wants to tell now: that of the Jewish family, the courageous Red Cross nurse or the Jewish doctor. Here a little less for the purpose of compaction would definitely have been more. "

- prism

“In fact, 'The Children of Paris' is more of the kind of recent anti-Nazi film that primarily uses historical horror as highly dramatic visual material. Also about Mark Herman concentration camp drama The Boy in the Striped Pajamas ' (2008) takes the child's perspective and thus above all an educational attitude. That is as socially useful as it helps the film itself to achieve the success it deserves. The simple means with which filmmakers try to mobilize emotions - even if they are the best - should always be criticized. "

- The daily mirror

“Told from the perspective of an eleven-year-old boy whose family gets caught up in the mills of events, the drama does away with the French myth of having been a nation of resistance fighters. The film has thus initiated the processing of the long taboo topic in France, but in the end remains too superficial for all its emotional power. "

- Film service

Background information

With a production budget of 20 million euros, the majority of the shooting took place between May and August 2009, partly on location in Paris, including Montmartre . The scenes that take place in the now demolished Vélodrome d'Hiver and the Beaune-la-Rolande camp were reconstructed in the Mafilm Studios near Budapest in Hungary. The film The Scream for Life with Michael York and Brigitte Fossey in the leading roles was made on the set of the concentration camp as early as 1983 .

The Children of Paris hit theaters on March 10, 2010 in France , Belgium and French-speaking Switzerland . In July 2010 it was presented at the Jerusalem International Film Festival . On the opening weekend alone, the film grossed 4.2 million euros in France.

The film is also one of the first Shoah films that does not directly address the crimes of the Germans, but also the collaboration of many French people and their involvement in the crimes of the Nazi regime.

Film versions

There are two versions of the film. While the DVD version is 115 minutes long, the French original version is around 5 minutes longer. In these scenes Hitler is shown discussing the next steps with Himmler to make France “ free of Jews ”. Hitler and Himmler are played by German actors, Udo Schenk and Thomas Darchinger . Another scene takes place on the Obersalzberg (power center in summer), again with Hitler and Himmler as protagonists. This scene also briefly shows Eva Braun , portrayed by the actress Franziska Schubert .

Voice actor

The voice actors for the German version:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Release for The Children of Paris . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , December 2010 (PDF; test number: 125 798 K).
  2. ^ Age rating for The Children of Paris . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ^ The children of Paris , prisma.de
  4. ^ The Children of Paris , tagesspiegel.de
  5. ^ The Children of Paris , filmdienst.de
  6. ^ Raid in French cinemas ( memento of August 24, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Jewish newspaper , May 2010
  7. ↑ synchronkartei.de: The children of Paris. Retrieved August 21, 2015 .