Spotlight on dark chapter in wartime history

THE atrocities committed by the French in July 1942 during the Rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv (Winter Velodrome roundup) represent a dark corner of the country’s psyche.

In league with the occupying Nazis, the Vichy regime mobilised the gendarmerie for the mass arrest of Parisian Jews.

About 13,000 men, women and children were then herded into either the Velodrome d’Hiver, which was converted into a makeshift ghetto, or the Drancy internment camp, both in Paris. The final destination was Auschwitz.

It took until 1995 – 53 years after the event – for the French Government to acknowledge its culpability when then president Jaques Chirac issued a formal apology to the victims and their families.

Undeterred by the national sensitivity to the subject matter, French filmmaker Roselyne Bosch wrote and directed The Round Up (La Rafle), an epic historical drama about the events.

Bosch, who is not Jewish, first came to the story when she met her husband, whose parents escaped the round-up. Bosch said she felt compelled to tell the story as a matter of historical record, and to educate a reticent population.

“We had 200 French camps, and no-one knows they existed. People [in France] believe we had no camps, except for people who are extremely educated and have a good understanding of history,” Bosch told The AJN while on location in Sweden.

“When I had my kids I realised it had to be done and quickly because all the kids who were 10 at the time [of the roundup] are 80 now.”

But not everyone shared Bosch’s enthusiasm. When the film was released on DVD in France a vitriolic online campaign was launched against the filmmaker, accusing her of being unpatriotic and a “Jew-lover”.

“It was extremely violent, to the point where we had to sue a few of these bloggers,” Bosch said of the abuse levelled at her.

“It reflects perfectly the state of mind of the country, and how divided the country still is.”

Based on rare survivor testimony, Bosch’s film, which stars Melanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds) and Jean Reno (The Professional), The Round Up follows a group of Jewish children and their families living in Paris and the tragedy that besets them at the hands of their compatriots, in some cases friends and neighbours.

“This was the biggest crime because they deported 4000 children, from age two to 15,” said Bosch.

“Most of those children left the country alone, their parents had already been deported separately. I was so surprised there was so little, in terms of cinema work, about that.”

Keen to retell the story faithfully, Bosch painstakingly re-created the infamous velodrome as well as Beaune-la-Rolande, a French internment camp, on location in Hungary.

The film is the second in as many years about the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup after Sarah’s Key, a fictionalised story about the events released in Australia last year.

The Round Up is currently screening.

REPORT: Adam Kamien

PHOTO: A scene from the French film The Round Up.