WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT
A film review by Jeff Meyer
Copyright 1987 Jeff Meyer
Seen at the Seattle Film Festival: WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT (USA, 1986) Director/Writer: Pierre Sauvage Subitled during interviews
This is not a particularly good world, or a good country, or a good era, for idealists to live in. Cynicism is easily promoted in almost every moral and ethical area involved in our lives: scandals in religion, conflicts of interests in politics, general apathy in dealing with what once were national ideals. Humanism is also a difficult standard to hold forth on, what with portions the world trying to kill other portions over religious, political, or ethnic differences. Belief in "good" begins to wane after the constant bombarding of reports of mankind's inhumanity to itself, and what little of it comes our way via the media is treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Pierre Sauvage lives in this world, and this country, and this era also. He is a documentary filmmaker, of Jewish decent, and by his own account, a fairly cynical human being. During World War II, his parents were on the run through France, trying to escape capture by the Gestapo or the French sympathizers, the Vichy government. They were taken in and hidden by a group of farmers in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, where Sauvage was born. They escaped from there several months later, and left for America, but Sauvage grew up with a great curiosity about the people who had hidden and protected his parents and himself during a period when the rest of France were deporting Jews to the death camps. His parents did not like to discuss this period of their lives, so Sauvage began doing research on his own. There was few, if any, documents to go on, but as he progressed he came upon more and more instances of Jewish refugees who had been hidden, fed and sheltered by the villagers of Le Chambon and its neighbors. Five years ago, he decided to visit Le Chambon and investigate; his documentary, WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT, is the result of his investigations. Sauvage attended the showing of his film at the Seattle Film Festival, and talked about how the history he uncovered had radically changed his life, and how he viewed the world. No wonder--I strongly doubt that anyone who sees this film can go away from it unchanged.
Between the fall of Paris to the Germans, and the German retreat, the lower half of France was ruled by the Vichy government, a French government ruling with the permission of the Nazis. The Vichy government took it upon itself to label, persecute, and finally export Jews to the death camps, unlike other occupied countries which refused to collaborate with the Nazis in this task, and forced the Gestapo to hunt for Jews themselves. However, in the south-east section of France, there was a small community where no Jews were ever exported. What is more, a large number of Jewish refugees were taken in, fed, housed, and hidden from both the Vichy representatives and the Germans. These people were strangers to the villagers of Le Chambon and its neighbors, families fleeing from various threats and just passing through this part of the country. Yet the people took them in, and took more and more in as the war progressed. These people were not paid, were given nothing other than help in doing farming chores (when possible) and the thanks of people who were, at that time, used to isolation from those who were not of their religion. Le Chambon-sur-Lignon had a population of approximately 5000 people, and during this period, they had as many as 5000 Jewish refugees hidden throughout their town and province! That is approximately one Jewish family for every house, farm or apartment in this area.
Sauvage talked to many of the older villagers who were involved in this "conspiracy of kindness," to ask how it was done, how it was accomplished. He asked one old woman how the refugee support was organized. "Organized?!" she said. "If it was was organized, it would never have worked!" No one person was the ringleader, though the parish priest was instrumental in introducing a general moral conviction to his parish, through his sermons; this way, no one person could be interrogated for the information. Besides the providing of shelter and food--and this was perhaps the most difficult part, because many of the occupants of Le Chambon were literally peasants--the villagers also managed to support a center for making forged documents for the Jewish refugees, and schools for their children. And through all this, they maintained a united, pacifistic front to the Vichy government, and later, the retreating German army.
Throughout it, Sauvage continually asks, "Why?" Why would they risk the lives of themselves and their families, go hungry at night, spend their money supporting people they had never met, and almost certainly would never meet again once they left Le Cambon? Time after time after time, these quiet, smiling people would answer back approximately the same thing: "Why, what else could we do?" "It was the only thing we could do." "It was a tenet of our faith." They all seemed to respond with polite surprise, as if wondering how they could not practice the lessons of the faith that they followed. Le Chambon and its vicinity is made up of the descendants of the Huguenots, French Protestants who were themselves persecuted for several centuries previous to the turn of the century. They are a very spiritual community, but tolerant of other faiths; the Jewish faith was practiced in sod houses and apartments throughout this period, with nothing but respect and deference given by their Christian hosts. And their history was full of stories of martyrs to the Huguenot faith; decades later, they would find that Le Chambon could still, tragically, produce those who would die for their religious and spiritual beliefs. I am an agnostic, and have become more and more skeptical of organized Christianity over the last several years; but this film shows the caliber of people who practice the Christian faith in their every action, who do not quibble over differences in the letter of their Bible, but try to practice the spirit in which it is written. I am glad to see such examples of what this religion is capable of; I hope others will remember it, when faced with the latest exploits of those who use Christianity as a vehicle of hate.
What is perhaps most unusual about this film is how it documents the infectiousness of the kindness practiced by these people. While the Jewish population was hidden, they were not being kept in basements or root cellars during this period. The amazing solidarity of the entire community made it possible for these people to wander around; if anyone from out-of-town asked, they were told that these people were visiting relatives, or people vacationing from the city. The falsified documents were provided quickly, and the surrounding countryside became a haven underneath the Nazis' noses. Moreover, records show that Vichy officials assigned to the area, people who had been assigned to live in Le Chambon from other parts of France, regularly overlooked the refugees (they could not have missed them--many examples of this are given), and sent in reports to their superiors informing them that "no Jewish activity" existed in Le Chambon. Later, when the Germans retreated through the town, constant examples of the German Army looking the other way occurred with almost clockwork regularity. It is as if the miasma of concentrated goodness, of love, overcame much of the prejudice and evil exposed to it, so that many people, soldiers who were butchers elsewhere, seemed to put down their hatred, if only for a time. Unfortunately, Klaus Barbi, the Gestapo monster currently on trial in France, finally got wind of Le Chambon. He was not able to flush the Jewish community out, for the Germans were finally being forced to flee from France, but his henchmen broke in and captured and exported several groups of Jewish children, killing the local people hiding them, or shipping them off to death camps along with the Jews. The parish ministers and the local schoolmaster would have gone to the camps themselves if it had not been for the local Vichy official, who convinced his headquarters that these men knew nothing about any Jewish encampments in the area (the official definitely knew otherwise).
And then the war was over; the refugees scattered to the four winds, and the villagers of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon went back to their daily world of growing crops and livestock. They constantly seemed surprised that Sauvage came back to see them; "We didn't do that much--we did what anyone would have done," says one old man. I find tears on my face when thinking back on this scene, about this man's modesty and his assurance that the rest of the world has the quiet strength and courage of will that he himself possesses. Sauvage thinks that may be the most important message that this film can pass on: that it shows people, "ordinary" people, who are heroes in every sense of the word, through their day-to-day sacrifice and their refusal to be intimidated into doing what is truly wrong, and to remind us that we, too, have the potential and the ability to be as heroic as these people are. What a wonderful world we would have if people such as these were truly "ordinary!"
As a film, B+. As an experience that you should not deny yourself, A+. I hope WEAPONS OF THE SPIRIT makes it onto PBS or to your local theater in the near future; I cannot imagine not getting something positive out of this film. See it.
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
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