VOA标准英语2010-French Movie Recounts Role in Holocaust

Lisa Bryant | Paris 10 April 2010

French director Roselyne Bosch takes part in a special tv show on The Rafle du Vel'd'Hiv (the "great round-up" or "great raid" of the Vel'd'Hiv) on the occasion of the release of her movie "La Rafle", 15 Feb 2010, in La Plaine Saint-Denis, near Paris.

French movie goers have been rushing to theaters to see a popular new film that recounts one of the most painful episodes of France's recent history - its role in the Holocaust¹ under the World War II-era Vichy government.

Titled La Rafle, or The Roundup, the film takes a look at one of the darkest moments of France's World War II-era collaboration² with Nazi³ Germany: the July,1942 arrest of 13,000 Parisian Jews. French police packed the Jews into a vast stadium near the Eiffel Tower where they languished⁴ for days with almost no food or water. They were then sent to an internment⁵ camp in central France before being shipped east to Nazi concentration camps. Almost all those deported⁶ died, including 4,000 children.

The film's director, Roselyne Bosch, said she wanted it to address France's new generation.

In an interview on French radio, Bosch says there was no film footage documenting that 1942 roundup, no pictures of the Jews at the French internment camp. But she was able to get witness accounts - from the nurses who cared for them.

One survivor⁷ of the roundup, 77-year-old Annette Muller, recounted the experience on French radio.

Muller remembers hearing violent knocks at the door of her Paris apartment late one night. She was nine years old at the time. She remembers her mother on her knees, begging French police to take her but to spare her children.

The family was hauled off to the stadium and then to the French internment camp of Drancy. Muller's father managed to buy her freedom and that of her younger brother. But Muller's mother was shipped to the Auschwitz concentration camp and never heard from again.

Serge Cwajgenbaum is secretary-general of the Paris-based European Jewish Congress. "Historically it's one of the most important parts of the period of World War II in France, the roundup - the rafle du Vel dHiv - is a symbol of collaboration between the French police and the German occupying authorities," he said.

Altogether, the Jewish Congress estimates about 75,000 Jews were deported from France during World War II. Only about 2,000 survived.

For years, France has had difficulty confronting its wartime past. It was not until 1995 that former French President Jacques Chirac became the first French leader to officially admit the state had played an active role in the Holocaust.

All the more reason, Cwajgenbaum says, for a film like La Rafle - so French and Europeans do not forget the Holocaust's lessons. "It's very appropriate because today we speak about Europe as a global entity⁸ and a democratic entity. But Europe is based on what Europe calls 'common values.' And the common values were established after the war by the founding fathers on Europe on the 'never again," he said.

Sixty-three-year-old Cwajgenbaum says La Rafle could be his own story. His parents survived the war. But most of his family was deported and killed at Auschwitz.

 

1 holocaust   

n.大破坏；大屠杀

参考例句：

• The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
• Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀，因为他像希特勒一样残忍。

2 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

3 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

4 languished   

长期受苦( languish的过去式和过去分词 )； 受折磨； 变得（越来越）衰弱； 因渴望而变得憔悴或闷闷不乐

参考例句：

• Our project languished during the holidays. 我们的计划在假期间推动得松懈了。
• He languished after his dog died. 他狗死之后，人憔悴了。

5 internment   

n.拘留

参考例句：

• Certainly the recent attacks against the internment camps are evidence enough. 很明显，最近营地遭受到的攻击就是一个足好的证明。 来自互联网
• The chapters on the internment are Both readaBle and well researched. 这些关于拘留的章节不仅具可读性而且研究得很透彻。 来自互联网

6 deported   

v.将…驱逐出境( deport的过去式和过去分词 )；举止

参考例句：

• They stripped me of my citizenship and deported me. 他们剥夺我的公民资格，将我驱逐出境。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The convicts were deported to a deserted island. 罪犯们被流放到一个荒岛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

8 entity   

n.实体，独立存在体，实际存在物

参考例句：

• The country is no longer one political entity.这个国家不再是一个统一的政治实体了。
• As a separate legal entity,the corporation must pay taxes.作为一个独立的法律实体，公司必须纳税。