For those that read the book, what was the time period between Sarah locking her brother in the closet and returning to see if he was ok?
It just seems strange that she was expecting him to be ok in there.. and no adult seemed to spoil her illusions or tell her otherwise. How long does one expect children to last in closets with only a small amount of water?
Brilliant movie, haunting scene.
I just got the eBook. I'm doing quick searches, so someone that has read it might have a better idea.
According to the movie, they were taken July 16th. The Tezacs moved in sometime in August, Sarah came back on their second day, presumably early August (the eBook says they found the apartment at the end of July, so they could have moved in earlier in July, and the movie took some liberty to change it to August). So we're talking between 1 to 3 or 4 weeks.
In the book, Mamé knew that the apartment had been occupied by people that had been rounded up (but quickly tried to back out of her comments and denied she knew). Also in the book, Edouard says that she came back a couple weeks after they had moved in (not 2 days after as in the movie).
As a child, Sarah probably didn't have a clear sense of how long he could survive like that, and she was quite concentrated on getting back (and had too many obstacles to overcome, so her focus was on getting back, no one had the heart to tell her he was probably dead already if he didn't escape - and that was a possibility too).
Speculating (on a fictional story), surviving a week might have been possible (or/and he might have been able to get out or someone might have helped him). Presumably, the Tezacs didn't notice the smell when they first visited the apartment (there were other units available when Sarah got there), so he would have died about a week before they moved in (assuming there was a delay and/or they didn't just ignore the smell on their first visits, since there might have been high demand for apartments in wartime). There is also the question if he would have made noise if he heard someone in the apartment (he might have been afraid at first, but if you're starving to death, if he had the strength, would probably have tried to call attention and take his chances).
In the end, it's somewhat of a device to add suspense and sets the story apart from the typical rescue story (ie, hiding Jewish fugitives from the Nazis), and puts a clock on our minds, even if she doesn't realize it was already too late the moment she locked the door.
More from the book, a quote from Edouard summarizing what he knew:
"The old couple came from Orléans. The girl had escaped from a nearby camp and had ended up on their property. They had decided to help her, to bring her back to Paris, to her home. My father told them that our family had moved in at the end of July. He did not know about the cupboard, which was in my room. None of us knew. I had noticed a strong, bad smell, and my father thought there was something wrong with the drains, and we were expecting the plumber that week.”
Thanks for that. Appreciate it- you are correct- it is used as a tool to create suspense but I also "felt" that the time was longer.
I thought they explained the tolerating the smell quite well actually.
Still am shuddering over that scene.
Thanks for this from someone who didn't read the book. Unless I'm missing something, in the movie, Michel had to have been in the locked closet for a minimum of nine days*, and that super-best-case scenario is belied by Julia's information (confirmed by Edouard?) that the Tezacs didn't move in until August. Occasionally victims trapped in the rubble of earthquakes, slides, tornadoes, etc., are found alive after more than a week, but they are not small children.
I like to believe that the writers meant Dufaures to be swept up in Sarah's passion when they risked their lives to get her to Paris and were as anxious as she to find the child alive, despite the bleak odds.
*Minimum: 1 night at Vel d'hiv; 1 night at camp w/Maman; 3 nights at camp sans Maman and unconscious with fever; 1 night waiting for escape opportunity; 2 nights at Dufaure's
As a matter of historical record, most of the Jews in the Vel' d'Hiv' were held there for six days before being shipped to the camps outside Paris. A few who eluded the police on the first day of the roundup were arrested later.
shareUnder the "Sarah's Neighbors" thread I wrote a long message on December 16, 2014 explaining why no one would have found Michel and rescued him.
Briefly, it was because whenever the Germans and their collaborators arrested Jews during World War II, they sealed shut the doors and windows of their homes. The purpose was to keep out looters before the Germans were ready to pack up and remove the contents. That was almost never the same day because their first priority was to either kill the Jews immediately or ship them to camps.
Other tenants of Sarah's apartment building, and even the concierge herself, would have been forbidden under threat of arrest to enter any of the Jews' apartments before the Germans had stripped them bare. Once Sarah locked Michel in the closet, he was as good as dead because no one was going to find him in time.
She didn't think that she and her mother would be gone very long. Up until then, the police had only been rounding up and deporting men. Sarah had no reason to think that she and her mother would be gone for more than a few hours.
shareDon't forget, she'd been sick with fever for days. She'd probably lost a sense of how much time had gone by.
shareit doesn't give an exact time in the book, but she does think that her brother, most likely is dead, but she still returns with hope that a neighbor or someone else had found him and he would still be alive.
sharePeople (for example, Irish hunger strikers in the 1970s) have actually lived for months without food. Without liquids, you can only last about two weeks.)
shareIt just seems strange that she was expecting him to be ok in there.. and no adult seemed to spoil her illusions or tell her otherwise. How long does one expect children to last in closets with only a small amount of water?
I just got back from seeing the movie. This part was brilliant, btw. She was a young girl who had been separated from her parents and confused by fever. The farmer and his wife had only Sara's conception of time to go by. They certainly felt her urgency.
Don't forget that, in addition to suffering from thirst and starvation, Michel could also have died from the intense summer heat--it was probably sweltering in the cupboard.
And remember, when the family was arrested, the police officer closed the window in the bedroom where the cupboard was? So there was little chance of any cool air coming in at all.
[deleted]