The Sorrow and the Pity (Le chagrin et la pitié)

Wedding in Germany Fallingbostel, May 1969

Dear children, even though your stomachs are full, you can stand a little speech.

Thirty years ago, when your mother and I married,

the sky was blue, but dark clouds were already looming on the horizon:

the clouds of World War Two.

All of us gathered here today

hope with all our hearts that you be spared such suffering.

Clermont-Ferrand: 134,000 residents in the Puy-de-Dome region.

The capital of Auvergne is 240 miles from Paris and 37 miles from Vichy,

which was the capital of France from 1940 to 1944.

Gergovie, a nearby Gallic town, used to be

the fortified town of Vercingetorix, conquered by Julius Caesar.

A father tells his children about a more recent defeat.

In 1939, I was 27 years old.

I was the father of a large family, so I hadn't been sent to the front.

The front was the Maginot Line.

I'd been sent to Montferrand, near Clermont,

and my wife's dairywoman, Mrs Michel,

had criticised me for not going to the front.

So, after the debacle,

I told her that there was no point in me going to the front,

since the front came to me.

Was there anything other than courage in the Resistance?

Of course. But the two emotions I experienced the most frequently

were sorrow and pity.

The Colonel was from Action Francaise

The Major was a moderate,

The Captain was all for the diocese,

The Lieutenant couldn't stand the church.

THE SORROW The adjutant was a fervent extremist

AND THE PITY The sergeant, a convinced socialist

CHRONICLE OF A FRENCH CITY The corporal, inscribed on all the lists

UNDER THE OCCUPATION And the private at the bookie's!

All these men made excellent Frenchmen.

Excellent soldiers who march in time.

Thinking that the Republic

is still the best thing going.

Now most of these strapping lads

A FILM BY MARCEL OPHULS don't share the same political views.

But they all agree, no matter what their view

Part 1: THE COLLAPSE is just to be left in bloody peace!

Two brothers, both local farmers, live a few miles from Clermont.

They have many memories of German occupation.

Is that your village?

That's where I was born.

I was born near that church there,

and later I lived on the farm facing the school.

You can't help but love your country.

Did you think about it in Buchenwald?

Not much.

- You didn't? - No.

- What did you think about? - Surviving. That's it.

That's mainly what I thought about.

But I'm talking about me, about how I saw things.

I'm not talking about those who...

There were some people who cried.

When I saw them cry, I knew that they would never make it.

No way. You had to think about yourself first,

and think about others after.

This politician also has reasons to remember.

For me, it was an experience that I will never forget.

This experience may have had a few secondary effects,

but I don't believe it has affected my attitude or behavior.

Has it not made you feel bitter towards certain French people?

No, I wouldn't say that.

It showed me that there are certain tendencies and habits,

which, when they are fired, fed, or stimulated,

crop up like weeds, and so we must always be on the defence.

We have to protect our youth from this type of propaganda.

We have to talk to them about it

more than we talked about it a generation or two ago.

The manager of the Philips company also has reasons to remember.

As I was saying, his friends would ask me why I joined the Resistance.

Why? Because going into a restaurant and seeing Germans at a table,

and being told there's only four steaks left for the Germans and none for us

was a little frustrating,

seeing as that steak came from our cows in Auvergne.

So it was our right to eat it before giving it away.

That's my first reason.

My second reason was that the Germans were forever imposing curfews.

It was, after all, a Nazi regime, a totalitarian regime,

no matter how you look at it.

It was worth fighting for,

it was even worth dying for, rather than to live as slaves.

Hence, the Resistance.

Lasting peace is what we need.

There's nothing more senseless than fighting.

That's what I think.

- Depends on what you're fighting for. - Do you think they really knew?

- They didn't know? - I doubt it.

There are a few fanatics who know why.

- Did you know why? - Yes, I did.

- But you weren't a fanatic? - No, but...

But when I went off to war in 1940...

I left in 1939, on September 2, and I was sent to Modane.

What could I have clone?

I knew nothing. I was going to kill guys I'd never seen before,

who had never harmed me.

Later, they did harm us when they arrived in France. They messed us up.

Even in moments of calm, the soldiers are ready to fight.

Faced with the enemy, they have the winning qualities of

patience, courage,

vigilance, determination,

and confidence.

In right-thinking circles, in high society in Paris,

they sympathised with our soldiers,

whose troubles were unfortunately nothing compared to what came later.

And consequently, during this period,

people sought to distract them, to entertain them,

to relieve them from the boredom of the Maginot Line,

where time passed at a snail's pace. It must've been painfully boring.

So the right-thinking women of the Parisian bourgeoisie

decided to form a committee to entertain our valiant soldiers,

to provide them with a more pleasant view.

The idea was to plant rosebushes on the Maginot Line,

to make it look prettier, to create a nicer atmosphere.

And there were people who donated money towards these rosebushes,

so that our soldiers didn't have to look at the horrid, concrete walls,

and to give them a flowery environment in which to live.

It's pathetic when you think about the awful things that came later.

The infantry is advancing at great intervals.

In Oisemont, the enemy has set fire to the tanks of an oil factory.

It took two weeks in Poland.

We felt it would be just as quick in France,

as we were anxious to go home.

And,indeed, we took France in just one month.

...and onwards it goes. Next stop: Paris.

Naturally, we attacked on several occasions,

but the hardest time was in Oing, on the Belgian border.

The Belgian blockhaus weren't ready, but we had to take position in them.

The Germans arrived equipped with tanks.

All that we had were machine guns.

They proceeded to kill everyone inside,

because it made such an easy target. There were no battlements.

They hadn't even put up reinforced doors.

I'm telling you, we walked... We withdrew,

and we must have walked at least 20 miles,

without running across any troops. Not one single troop.

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

First of all, I'd like to emphasize the fact that the German staff

was not expecting to achieve such a quick, resounding success.

We soldiers, unlike Hitler,

were convinced that we were facing the same adversary as in 1914-1918,

a determined, brave adversary, prepared to fight to the bitter end.

Unfortunately, I must admit that Hitler was right in this case.

He was always saying how the French were incapable

of repeating their performance in World War I,

and he never missed an opportunity to add to this statement

a few disagreeable and derisory remarks or comments

on the general emotional and moral state of France.

GERMAN NEWS

Near Noyon, General Stummel, taking the vanguard with his troops,

with his adjutant, took several prisoners.

It began with two.

Later, many others surrendered.

The prisoners come from every nation and every walk of life.

So-called defenders of the great nation.

In fact, a shame for the white race.

These are the black brothers of the French.

In the words of Chamberlain,

"We, together with our allies, are the guardians of civilization."

"Together we fight medieval barbarism."

These are the guardians of civilization.

These are the barbarians.

This is the war of the Franco-English plutocrats.

They began this war rashly without taking any heed of the consequences,

to fight for the English lords,

not only until the last Frenchman, but until the last French house.

Mrs Tausend, you stayed in Germany.

Did you read the papers? Did you watch the German news?

Yes, we followed the events closely.

Naturally, we were a bit frightened.

But the news of victory made us happy.

These cars are stopped for a lack of petrol.

The Jewish warmongers and Parisian plutocrats,

with their suitcases full of gold and precious stones, have fled.

This shortage of petrol put a crimp in their plans.

The streets were hopelessly blocked.

Yet these English-loving traitors and deserters

continued their journey on foot.

These are the French people who have been mercilessly evacuated

and dragged along in the flood of the routed French army.

Soon, these people will be able to go home.

The German people were spared such a trial,

thanks to the Fuhrer and his German soldiers.

During that time, there was an enormous upsurge

of the people, who were completely panicked, terrified.

Fate willed that I should be given leave

in the last few days of the month of April.

Consequently, I was in Paris in early May when the Germans invaded.

On the roads, people were going mad, terrified by the bombings.

With them, they brought what they could:

children, pets, precious objects...

Some rode on wagons, others on bicycles.

It was a mish-mash of everything and everyone. It was awful to see.

It was all the more awful in that

the Germans, in an effort to block and ruin the roads for the soldiers,

didn't hesitate in bombing these columns of refugees.

As a result, and I can attest to this fact,

there were bodies strewn all over the place: men, women, horses.