Reflection Questions

1. What is Sauvage's relationship with the little village of Le Chambon?

2. Why did he give the documentary this title?

3. What part of France was the little village of Le Chambon in during the Second World War?

4. What was the policy of the Petain government toward the Jews during the period of occupation?

5. What was U. S. policy toward Jewish immigration during this period?

6. Was there anywhere in the world that welcomed Jews during this period of history?

7. Was there much public support in Vichy France for the German policies toward the Jews?

8. The majority of Chambonnais were Huguenots.  What is a Huguenot?

9. What happened during the time the Chambonnais called "The Desert."  Why was it important in what happened later during the Second World War?  How does this relate to what Christ says in the Sermon on the Mount about the Beatitudes?

10. Early on the documentary, one of the characters explained the Chambonnais by saying that they were people who "still believed in something," and that for them, helping people was "a normal thing to do."  Two questions: First, what do you suppose the commentator meant when he said that they "still believed in something"?  Second, was what they did "a normal thing to do"?

11. The two pastors of the town – André Trocmé and Edouard Theis – were they popular or particularly successful Protestant pastors in France?

12. According to the Swiss instructor at the school for refugee children, there had been a veranda on the school where they gathered in the evenings to talk.  What did they talk about?

13. Why did the people of Le Chambon feel particularly close to the Jews?

14. According to a commentator, these were people who felt that their faith would be in vain if it weren't followed up and confirmed by what?

15. What was your judgment of Monsieur Laminade, the man who had been Minister for Youth during the Vichy regime?

16. What was your judgment of the police officers who came to the village to arrest the Jews but said to the Chambonnais villagers: "What they're making us do is horrible"?

17. At one point in the interview with Madame and Monsieur Hétier, she says about what they did during the war: "It just made sense.  It was a benefit for us?"  What did she mean?  What would be your judgment of the situation?  Was it a benefit for them?  Would it have been a benefit for you, if you had been put in that situation?

18. Although the school started by Trocmé and Theis had a lot of Jewish children in it, according to one of the teachers, the Jews and Christians got along because "no one ever made a disparaging remark."  You're in a school.  This school has people of various faiths, classes, and ethnic backgrounds.  Can it be said of this community that "no one ever makes a disparaging remark about one another"?  Do you think anyone would make disparaging remarks if all of sudden a large number of refugee students were enrolled and showed up on the campus?

19. Theis said that he thought the Christian faith could be summed up on two statements.  What were they?

20. One British woman who had worked in the village during the war said of the Christian faith of the Chambonnais that, "it was not a sentimental faith."  What did she mean?  She also said that it was a faith that "had been put to the test and not found wanting."  Would the same be true if your faith were put to the test?  

21. At a certain point in the film, Sauvage says that "the age of martyrs was to resume in Le Chambon."  Who was he speaking about?  (There were two in particular.)  What is the classic Christian view of martyrs?  What does the word "martyr" mean?  Are martyrs failures?

22. One of these "martyrs" had written to his family in the year before his death that he felt "questioned by life."  He suggested that the answer he gave, he would give "only to himself"; that he was not interested in success in public, worldly terms, but only in terms of becoming a worthy person.  He was captured by the Nazis and died in Bergen-Belson Concentration Camp.  Was he a success?  Or not?  Or was he instead a foolish dreamer?  Or worse, a sort of inept loser?

23. One of the people who lived in the village during the Second World War was a person who actually did later gain some celebrity: namely, the French existentialist novelist Albert Camus.  What novel did he write while he was living in the town?  Compare his attitude with that of the Rescuers who lived in Le Chambon.

24.At a certain point in the film, Madame Hétier says very bluntly: "We didn't ask ourselves about what we were doing.  It was very simple – uncomplicated.  It just seemed the human thing to do."  Was it simple and uncomplicated?  Was it the "human" thing to do?  Are humans falling short of their "humanity" if they don't do such things?  

25. A commentator at this point in the film says of the Chambonnais what Hallie often says: They were just "doing what came naturally."  What does that mean?  Compare this sense of "doing what comes naturally" with our usual sense of the term, embodied, for example, in the lyrics of the song that goes:

"You and me we ain't nothin' but mammals,
So let's do it like they do it on the Discovery Channel."
 
Were the Chambonnais just "doing what comes naturally"?  Were they people who were just "coolin' it," "lyin' low," "chillin'," "takin' things easy"?  Were they "hip"?  Were they "cool"?  Would such slogans have served them well?  Would they have served the Jewish refugees well?

26. Toward the end of the documentary, while discussing the liberation of France, Sauvage asserts that "the people of Le Chambon had never ceased to be free."  What did he mean?  Is this true?

27. Did the refugees who were sheltered by the Chambonnais express their gratitude after the war?

28. Did Pierre Sauvage's parents talk a great deal about the people of Le Chambon?  Did he learn a lot about the village from them?

29. Did you get the feeling that the Chambonnais were hurt much by the fact that not much gratitude had been expressed to them after the war?

30. The documentary suggests that the memory of their ancestors and parents was very important to the Chambonnais and that it was important to them that they become a "reflection of their image."  Is it important to you to become a "reflection of the image" of your parents and grandparents?  Is it important for many people you know?  What do you think of a culture were there is so much antipathy between children and their parents?  What do you think the Chambonnais would think of it?  What do you think MTV thinks of it?  Why is this division in their interest?  Is it in yours?

31. At the end of the documentary, the British woman suggests a thesis which Philip Hallie adverted to time and again: that Le Chambon was an altogether "normal" village; that what happened in Le Chambon could have happened in any community anywhere; and that, rather than being "extraordinary" people, these were "ordinary" people doing extraordinary things.  Do you believe this?

32. The documentary says on several occasions that most of the rescuers of Jews in Europe were not aware of each other.  One of the excuses many people give in such circumstances, given the unbelievable magnitude of the evil they are facing, is to say: "We had no choice.  There was nothing we could have done.  It would have done no good anyway."  What is your assessment of that judgment?

1. In his interview with Bill Moyers, Pierre Sauvage says that he "went into the world as a nothing."  What was he referring to and what did he mean?

2. During the interview, both Sauvage and Moyers point to the importance for the Chambonnais that they had a "strong sense of self"; that they "knew who they were."  First, do you think this is ture?  Second, do you think the Chambonnais would have understood the comment.  Third, do you think you have a "strong sense of self" and "know who you are" in the way that the Chambonnais did?

3. Again in the interview as in the documentary, Sauvage says that the Chambonnais merely "did what came naturally."  Did they?  Were these "heroic" acts?  Were they "extraordinary"?  Were they "supererogatory acts"?  (If you don't know the meaning of the word, look it up!)

4. According to Sauvage, good novelists usually have their characters agonize over decisions.  What did Sauvage come to think of this?  What did he say about "people who agonize"?

5. Sauvage repeats another theme that is powerfully present in Hallie's piece: that the problem wasn't so much people like Hitler and Goebbels (to whose crimes many people compared their own acts).  What was the bigger problem?  Is this a problem in American culture?  In the culture of this university?  In you?  Or am I being too dramatic?  Should I just "chill out," "take it easy," and "keep cool"?

6. Moyers and Sauvage point to a classic paradox about the Holocaust: the Holocaust took place in Christian Europe, and yet most of the rescuers were Christians who were heavily influenced and motivated to rescue Jews precisely because of their Christian faith.  Analyze this puzzle.

7. What did Pierre Sauvage's sister mean when she said hugging Madame Hétier was "like hugging a tree"?

8. Sauvage points out that for him and for other people living in L.A., "for us, things are so hard."  But for the people of Le Chambon, things were "so easy."  Indeed, he suggests that the people of Le Chambon "derived strength from their effort."  Why do you suppose that is?

9.You are in a university with a lot of intellectuals.  Your professor is one of them.  How did the intellectuals behave during the Holocaust?  What does it mean that you are being taught by a bunch of intellectuals?   

10. One of the virtues that was obviously important for the people of Le Chambon was "integrity."  What is "integrity"?  Is it a virtue you think much about?

11. As I've been writing these questions, I've been sitting in a coffee shop across from the University watching people drive by.  What sort of behavior do you suppose I have been observing on the road?  Do you think this activity has been very much in accord with the themes of the documentary, or not?  What sort of driver are you?  If I told you that you had a moral obligation to drive safely on the roads, act decently toward all the strangers you encounter there, and think as much or more about others as about yourself, would you tell me to "get real"?  If I said that people had a moral obligation to act like the villagers of Le Chambon, would you tell me to "get real" – "no one does that" – "it wouldn't make any difference anyway," and "why don't you mind your own business!"?

12. What did Pierre Sauvage mean when he said that Americans think too much about and put too much stock in the LAW?

13. What was the thesis Bill Moyers advanced about "leaders" and their relationship with their people?  (Do we, in other words, get the leaders we deserve?)

14. The people of Le Chambon were actually risking their lives.  For us, we don't usually have to risk our lives.  What are the things we more often have to risk?  What, according to Pierre Sauvage, is the choice that we need to make?

15. Why was Sauvage glad that he didn't change the title "Weapons of the Spirit"?  Why in the end did he think that was a good title?

16. Moyers and Sauvage make several references to Europe in the 1930s and 40s as a "Christian culture."  Was it?

17. Sauvage asserts that the example of Le Chambon shows that "the spirit does have power to transcend circumstances"; that "it is possible for people to care."  Is it?

18. Moyer and Sauvage also seem to think it is important to make clear to children that "the darkness is real"; that "evil is there."  Do you agree?  They also feel that we should reveal to kids both "the magnitude of evil" along with "the possibility of good."  Do you agree?