When the Gestapo guy comes along, why not just deny that you're a Jew? You've probably got papers, no?
Sure, like Bonnet says, they would have gotten him anyway - Joseph would have identified him in the lineup if need be. But Bonnet didn't know that. Why not just maintain that you were Bonnet. I would!
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
I was wondering the same thing as well. I'm actually watching it again, right now. I was thinking that maybe they knew what he looked like already, or maybe knew what his family looked like making it easier to find him. Because the Gestapo guy just looks at him before you he leaves and it seems that we knows he is the one. Maybe he just saw Julien quickly looking at Bonnet. If it were me, I would like to think I would make an effort to lie and even escape once taken out. But it's hard to say what you would do is such a scary situation. Like the auther Derek Jensen said "The Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising—including those who went on what they thought were suicide missions—had a higher rate of survival than those who went along. Never forget that."
Sing me to sleep. I don't want to wake up on my own anymore.
[deleted]
Well even if you did have papers they would probably make you drop your pants to check and see if you were circumcised.
shareAs Jimmy Olstein said to Uberman, Germany's answer to Superman, on an old, old episode of SNL, "But my parents believed in hygeine!"
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
They definately would have made him drop his pants. Remember when Julien is in the infirmary at the end of the film? They came up to him and made him drop his pants, to see if he was circumsized or not. Also, it's easy to say that we would have been cool liars, but thank God none of us, except people who have been in the military, has been interrogated or about to be taken away at gunpoint. These were young kids, I cannot imagine how scared they were.
shareOh, sure, I agree, I would have definitely folded under pressure, as I'm sure we all would have. But at least give it a shot, you know? Nothing to lose.
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
But at least give it a shot, you know? Nothing to lose.
"the Gestapo would have simply said "Sorry, our mistake" and walked away"
Only if the Gestapo were being played by British actors. (heh, heh)
"He knew that any denial on his part was simply delaying the inevitable."
Listen, I hear ya and all, and you're probably right, of course, but I still disagree about the "nothing to gain." He's got everything to gain. He can't be in any worse a position than he was. We don't know what rules the Gestapo were playing by; whether they really had the goods on him, or whether it was simply standard Gestapo procedure to take anyone suspected of being a Jew and give them an examination. And more to the point, neither did the boy. So why not give it a go? .
And would being circumcized be a proof Jewishness back then? Weren't at least some non-Jews getting circumcized in the thirties? Like I said, it's worth a shot.
Here's a story about why I take this position. It was spring break in Fort Lauderdale, 25 years ago, back when that meant something. My parents had just retired to a condo there, and I visited to take advantage of the proximity to the beach, parties, women, etc. Long story short, the very first night, after they go to sleep, I take the car out and get into an accident - a fender-bender. I come back to their place, park, go in; it's late, they're asleep, so I decide not to wake them and deal with it in the morning. I figure I'm completely screwed anyway, so what difference will it make, y'know?
My mom wakes me up in the morning, and asks me, "Did you take the car out last night?" At that moment, I realize she doesn't know, and hey, I can lie here! What's the worse that would happen - that they'll ground me anyway? And what's the best thing - that I continue to get to use the car and party with drunken college students. So, I say WTF and lie. And it worked! I pulled it off! We all had a really good laugh about it years later.
Mind you, I was 19, not 13, and my parents weren't the Gestapo. But you see what I mean?
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
And would being circumcized be a proof Jewishness back then?
"And for all we know, the mental strain may have become too much for Jean"
That explanation makes the most sense to me. That, I can understand and identify with.
"Jew-killing Nazis can't really be equated with parents who love you."
Wanna bet?
JUST KIDDING!!!
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
Re the circumcision: It would, indeed, have been EXTREMELY rare for a European male who was not Jewish to have been circumcized in the 30s. It was already common in the US but not in Europe. (I don't know the history of how circumcision became so widely accepted in the US.)
You might be interested in the movie Europa, Europa, another movie about a young Jewish boy masquerading as a non-Jew in WWII. The boy in the movie is actually adopted by a German Nazi family. He can't EVER let anybody see him naked because the circumcision would give him away and all through the movie he's avoiding situations in which he would be detected. It is based on a true story of a guy who did survive WW II in that way.
btw -- Bonnet probably DID have some kind of papers, but another reason he might not have wanted to rely on them was that to produce them would implicate other people who had provided them.
There's also the child mindset of that time that adults already know everything. Lying would've been pointless because the Gestapo man was looking for physical stereotypes in order to search out the boy. He already knew approximately where to look and had the boy's full name which was a lot more than just blindly fishing in the dark. If Julien hadn't looked back, the Gestapo would have just tried another tactic.
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I ain't your friend, palooka.
"the child mindset of that time that adults already know everything"
Also a good explanation. Thanks.
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
Well, "nothing to gain" is relative.
Beside it being a child under a tremendous lot of pressure, which is probably the main factor, there can also be rational considerations.
Not many people, including jews, were fully aware of what is happening to the ones taken away, until after the end of the war. Sure, internment and forced labour, with probably low chance of survival - but not whole-sale killing.
Being taken away was not necessarily equated with a definite death sentence - messing with the Gestapo, however, was usually a very bad idea (shot in the back of the head on the spot was not completely uncommon).
As to circumcision, in the '30s in Europe, it was very rare, almost non-existent among non-jewish. Being circumcised was sufficient reason to be interred (in fact, in many places "Jewish nose" templates were in circulation with the police - having a bend in the nose over a certain angle, in absence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, was enough to be accused of having jewish blood and being put on the next train out).
Against the Gestapo, who knew whom they were looking for, where, and what he's approximately supposed to look like, resistance was pretty much futile.
Beside it being a child under a tremendous lot of pressure, which is probably the main factor, there can also be rational considerations.
Yep, we like keeping our hooded monks in this continent, more pleasure while at it if you know what I'm talking about.
shareTrained Resistance operatives might have come up with a story like that, but not a scared kid. And at that time, being circumcised in Europe meant you were either Jewish or Muslim, and at that time there were few Muslims in western Europe.
When the Soviet general Vlasov defected to the Germans and formed the "Russian Liberation Army", there were persistent rumours that one of his subordinates, a lieutenant named Zykov, was Jewish. Zykov showed a preference for avoiding showers when others were there, and it may be that he was hiding something. Zykov was mysteriously killed in the summer of 1944.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."