la rafle

As the years distance us from the Nazi horror, and as survivors are slowly starting to lessen in number, we are faced, as a nation, with the challenge of how to educate the new generations of the Holocaust. Many young people have no knowledge of the events that took place in World War II. However, today, artifacts can greatly contribute to the understanding of the Holocaust, just as the movie La Rafle (The Round Up) did for me. The Round Up by Roselyn Bosch shows that the mass arrest of Jews did not only happening in Germany and it also emphasized the cruel dramatic irony of this historical moment.

La Rafle is a movie about the truth, a truth that doesn’t want to be noticed. We often mistake ourselves by thinking that the dehumanization of Jews was only present in Germany. “The 1942 operation, known as the Vel d'Hiv, was carried out not by the SS or Nazi storm troopers but by the Paris police. “ (Huffington). In July 1942, over 13,000 Jews were rounded up by French authorities and forcibly taken to a stadium in Paris, where they were held with little to no food and absolutely no information as to their fate. Throughout this movie we learn that the hatred towards Jews begins to build up. In the beginning they were made to wear stars on all of their clothing, signs were being put up on parks that Jews were not allowed, neighbors started turning their heads, and the Jews felt unwelcomed. Although France was one of the more liberal countries in welcoming Jewish immigrants, the SS was in control and they “forced” French collaborators to commit such crimes. In the end it is simply the betrayal by the Vichy government towards the Jews that lived in France. The Round Up shows one of the many ways that the Jewish population were to be e...

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...erlooked part of the war. As the movie focuses on one family, “The young son that managed to escape and is alive today to talk about the horrors. In an interview more than twenty years ago he said that no one would dare to make a film about the incident … what happened to the children was just too inhumane.”(Liberty lady)

La Rafle is a movie that is both entertaining and educational; it takes us into the lives of the Jewish children and families, who are living in France and still going through the horrors of extermination. This movie is a brave answer to the eroding memory of that time. We are faced to watch and learn about one of the most heinous atrocities ever committed by man, however such knowledge is needed for many survivors will not be alive to share their stories. Artifacts like museums and movies shed light on the events that occurred during the war.