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.
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
Inspiring story Weapons of the Spirit is the story of a small French town that saved at least 3000 Jews during the Second World War. Their history as a Heugenot (Protestant) community that had endured centuries of persecution and their reverence for the people of the Old Testament (the Jews) combined with their strong sense of justice made them just naturally protect the most vulnerable at great risk to themselves. The video asks relevant questions for today. Who will stand up for the most vulnerable today? What makes one group put themselves on the line for those that do not belong to 'their people' and what makes other groups take the easy way of going along with authority even when the authority is wrong?
Unforgettable Weapons of the Spirit I searched for several years to find this film. It is powerful, memorable, an inspiration. It has impacted my life.
A soul-stirring film Weapons of the Spirit is one of the most touching, enlightening and disturbing films I've seen in many years. The villagers of Le Chambon, mostly poor, Protestant farmers and small shopkeepers, sheltered thousands of Jews during the nightmare of the Holocaust. For these simple people the choice was obvious, and not to help their brothers in need was unthinkable. The interviews are touching, direct, and often quite funny.
I have shown this film and taught it many times. It never fails to bring tears to the eyes of the audience, and to convince them that humans, all too obviously capable of great evil, are also capable of good.
"the stories of the righteous are ... cornerstones to the future." In 1984, when Pierre Sauvage was in post-production on "Weapons of the Spirit," as he is now on "And Crown Thy Good," he wrote an article for MOMENT magazine in which he explains his motivation for speading the stories of righteous Gentiles. In so doing, he replies to the comment: "There were so few of them." "As if we even knew the numbers in this largely uncharted chapter of our past," Sauvage writes. "As if we didn't believe, we Jews especially, that even tiny minorities may own important, perhaps even divine truths. "The late pastor of Le Chambon lived his life, his eloquent pacifist's life, as a demonstration of Christian faith. Yet in his unpublished memoirs, he confided that his faith was, ultimately, in the possibility of good on earth, 'without which,' he added, 'the theoretical existence of God doesn't interest me.' "And I, the father of David, who want to believe in that possibility too, who want to extend it and pass both the belief and the evidence for it on to my child and to his, am bound to seek out and to treasure and to learn from the bits and pieces I can find even in the moral rubble of these times - especially in the moral rubble of these times. "That is why, as I tell David of these things, as he learns that there is in all of us a great capacity for evil and an even greater and more insidious capacity for apathy, I want him to learn that the stories of the righteous are not footnotes to the past but cornerstones to the future. I owe my life to the good people of Le Chambon. I owe even more than that to my son."
Fair and Moving Documentary Sauvage does a great job of portaying the folk of Le Chambon in their magnificent modesty. He allows the characters to speak at length and refrains from melodrama for the most part. He demonstates the awesome potential of good-doing in the midst of extreme cruelty, even if he plays down the Christ-centered source of the Protestant's compassion.
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