Product Details

• Actors: Joseph Atlas, René Bousquet, Adolphe Caritey, Roger Darcissac, Charles Gibert
• Directors: Pierre Sauvage
• Format: Color, Full length, NTSC
• Language: French
• Number of tapes: 1
• Run Time: 115 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0967651204
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,749 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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  #21 in	Video > Documentary > Independently Distributed
  #35 in	Video > Documentary > History
  #47 in	Video > Art House & International > By Original Language > French

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
As the Nazi war machine marched across Europe and Jews were rounded up and killed, a small town in France became an unlikely haven for the persecuted. The small village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, which was inhabited mostly by Huguenots (devout Protestants whose own history involved being persecuted), became a place where families took in Jews and hid them in their houses and on their farms. The villagers risked their lives, and their bravery is evident in interviews with residents who recall the Nazis searching house to house for Jews in hiding. Produced by Pierre Sauvage, who was born in the village while his parents were being sheltered, this documentary is a moving look at ordinary people who performed extraordinary feats. What is perhaps most impressive is how the elderly villagers interviewed on camera seem to think what they did wasn't very heroic at all, but rather a simple expression of their religious faith. It is humbling to hear them describe how it was impossible for them to do anything other than protect their fellow humans from great evil. This edition of the documentary is introduced by Bill Moyers, and also features an interview Moyers conducted with filmmaker Sauvage. --Robert J. McNamara

Product Description
In and around one village in Nazi-occupied France, 5,000 Jews were taken in and sheltered--by 5,000 Christians! "Weapons of the Spirit" is the story of a unique conspiracy of goodness, a story filmmaker Pierre Sauvage was born to tell: he was born and protected at that time in that singular oasis of peace--Le Chambon.

Le Chambon-sur-Lignon was a tiny Protestant farming village in the mountains of south-central France. Defying the Nazis and the French government that was collaborating with the Nazis, the villagers of the area of Le Chambon provided a safe haven throughout the war for whoever knocked on their door.

Most of the villagers were proud descendants of the Huguenots, the first Protestants in Catholic France. They remembered their own history of persecution, and it mattered to them. They also read the Bible, and tried to heed the admonition to love your neighbor as yourself.

"The responsibility of Christians," their pastor, André Trocmé, had reminded them the day after France surrendered to Nazi Germany, "is to resist the violence that will be brought to bear on their consciences through the weapons of the spirit."

There were many other uncelebrated individual and collective acts of goodwill and righteousness throughout the dark war years. But nowhere else did a persistent and successful moral consensus develop on a scale approaching what happened in the area of Le Chambon.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply moving and challenging film, September 6, 2001

By	Patrizia "Patrizia" (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

I first saw this film on TV on a local PBS station several years ago. From that day on I searched in video stores, the PBS station's gift shop in the Philadelphia area (WHYY) and video catalogues to find it. Then, for a paper I was writing on "altruism" I searched the web and came across this film,a copy of which I ordered from Amazon. This is a true story of French people who, while unremarkable in many ways, were extremely remarkable in the way they almost naturally lived out their Christian faith by, along with their neighbors, hiding and helping to protect many French Jews during WWII from Nazi terrors. After seeing this film and reading "Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There," by Philip Hallie I have pondered what I might do in their place. I can only hope I might be like them, and have asked, "Lord, enable me to be like these people who loved You and others this way - in a real way, when faced with evil and danger." Please view this film and share it with others.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Every church and synagogue in America should own this, August 2, 1999

By A Customer

Five stars aren't high enough for some movies. This is a masterpiece to savor, watch again and again, share with children, and pass along to generations yet to come. Why can't more movies inspire as much hope and goodness as this one? Buy a copy for yourself; buy another to give to your church or synagogue.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deeply moving account of simple dedication and love., May 18, 1999

By A Customer

Through personal interviews and on site filming, a young Jewish film maker recounts and attempts to analyze the courageous display of love and commitment to essential truth in the French Heugenot village of Le Chambon during WWII. French Protestant Christians, themselves with a history of extreme persecution, shelter five thousand Jews in a village of five thousand. Not one Jew is lost. The mystery of the courageous response, the sacrifice and the success is skillfully laid out in a series of interviews. You won't take your eyes off this film for one minute, you won't go away without tears and you will want to see it again ... and share it!