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Bohny Friedel Reiter at the 4th Swiss Film Week in Montpellier
What could be more logical for a Swiss film festival that screens films that talk about life in Switzerland? - The organizers of the 4th week Film Switzerland had the idea to show Montpellier everyday concerns of people in their countries: migrant workers, multilingualism, the differences between city and countryside ... However, in the programming of the 4th Swiss Film Week, there was a movie that came out of range. Journal de Rivesaltes not playing in our neighbors, like other films of the festival, but in France, at Rivesaltes in the Pyrenees-Orientales. His subject: the camp of Rivesaltes 1941-1942.
The film's director, Jacqueline Veuve, used to spend his summers in the Pyrenees-Orientales. The ruins of the camp of Rivesaltes were not far from his vacation spot. "I saw the barracks, but nobody could tell me what happened there in truth." Intrigued, she began to do research - to no avail, until she falls on the newspaper Bohny Friedel Reiter.
"What struck me is that I saw the camp for twenty years without knowing its history. Without this book, I never found out the facts. "And it was not for lack of asking. She has interviewed people in Perpignan and in the immediate vicinity of the camp. But what he found was his past as a camp for refugees from the war in Spain. "No one ever spoke of Jews or gypsies."
When Jacqueline Veuve had read the book Bohny Friedel Reiter, she knew she wanted to know the author. Bohny Friedel Reiter was a nurse, engaged in the "Swiss Aid to Children". This body, the white cross of Switzerland, had sent in Rivesaltes.
His task, officially, was only to care for children. But Friedel Reiter Bohny woman was not able to see the misery without intervening, unable to deal differently with adults or children, refugees from Spain, gypsies, Jews, French or German. All that mattered to her was the human being. And suffering ... "I made this film, even if Bohny Friedel Reiter was not sent by the Swiss," replies the director, Jacqueline Veuve, the question of the team People Montpellier . "We can not be indifferent to this suffering." Yet she never knew if the people around did not speak the truth or whether they simply do not know. At the time, people, even in the so-called free area, lived in fear. Maybe it was better not to be aware of what went on behind the barbed son in this camp sunny summer crude, delivered to the cold and the north wind in winter ...
Someone would have preferred that the version of "English refugee camp" between forever in history? Anyway, the book Bohny Friedel Reiter - and later the film by Jacqueline Widow - revealed the truth. It is not wrong he served as a camp for war refugees from Franco, but there were also Gypsies, and especially the Jews.
Bohny Friedel Reiter, who plays himself, tells the audience the truth about what happened at Rivesaltes between 1941 and 1042, wonders at the end of the film, there may be a "sense" all this suffering. She talks about all those people she saw die of hunger, cold, deprivation, these humans who have died of despair in the heart, which had abandoned the idea that better days were still possible. Mothers closed eyes with the only hope Bohny Friedel Reiter, the angel came from Switzerland, take care of their children ...
However, one day, the camp has been lifted. That day, some of the survivors were deported to other camps, for the most part, but to life. There was one group whose fate, at this moment was definitely the death, the Jews. All Jews who survived the tortures of Rivesaltes were taken - in Auschwitz. Delivered by the French government to Nazi devils.
Bohny Friedel Reiter has been able to save a few, some hidden Jewish children at home or among others. But not enough, as she made clear to viewers of the film. And this "not enough" weighs more to her than all the lives they had preserved.
"In the end, when the camp was struck, the Jews were the only real victims. They were killed, while others were deported," said Jacqueline Veuve. Is this why nobody in the vicinity of Rivesaltes not remember the destination of the camp? There will never answer that question. - "Anti-Semitism was not restricted to Germany," said the director, and one gets the impression that it was said so often that words can no longer hurt her. As if, after she became involved in this film, the pain could no longer grow. "He was everywhere in Europe, both in Switzerland, France, Germany ..."
Then, however, it adds what sounds like a message of hope. "But it was not all. There were always people that helped." Always and everywhere. That is the thinking that dominates the film.
But the work of Jacqueline Veuve does change minds? "People do not want to know. They always need a scapegoat. The film will not change their mentality."
remarkable aspect: unlike many other films on the topic, "Journal de Rivesaltes 1941-1942" takes no political position. He speaks only of people, human suffering, the smiles of people who, like Bohny Friedel Reiter, bring a tiny light in a nearly impenetrable darkness, their doubts, and despair. The audience (or most of the audience) do not cry while watching this film. The tears that often come so easily in the theaters are like blocked. We are not able to release images by placing a few tears. It is as if paralyzed, suffering displayed on the screen is too large. Too Human, mostly.
"I am very little politics in my film," says Jacqueline Veuve also. And for good reason. "A director who makes policy in such a film is a clear conscience." He wants to prove he is the "right side", he is among those who nail the bad guys in the pillory. "All I want is to wake people up. Without policy and without showing how I am 'good'."
After the shooting, and Jacqueline Veuve Bohny Friedel Reiter remained friends until the disappearance of the nurse. The director said she had a quiet death. "She lay down to rest. And she was more awake." Sleep for the eternal rest - perhaps is this the well-deserved reward for the angel of the Rivesaltes camp ...
Photos and text are copyright Doris Kneller
Copyright: Doris Kneller, 2009 
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