In the summer of 1942 more than 12,000 French Jews were delivered to the Nazi. They were locked at the Vélodrome d'Hiver for several days without food or water or sanitation.

It was up to Red Cross nurses, like Annette Monod (Mélanie Laurent),and Dr. Sheinbaum (Jean Reno) to care for the prisoners and mitigate their suffering.

La Rafle is not a film about the deportation of Jews and the horror of the concentration camps with Hitler's Final Solution. This film is powerful testimony to the denaturalization of French Jews, the appalling conditions of the Vel d'Hiv, the lack of resistance of the French police as well as the existence of the French camps.

This powerful and deeply moving film depicts one of the most shocking and shameful episodes of French history. In July 1942 the French police, at the direction of the Nazis, rounded up thousands of Jewish citizens and detained them in appalling conditions in the Paris velodrome for several days. The detainees were then shipped to a camp outside Paris for a period of time before they were subsequently transported to the extermination camps in Poland. This incident was the backdrop for the recent Sarah's Key, which starred Kristen Scott Thomas. But here the subject matter is far more powerful, harrowing and ultimately poignant. There is no doubting the anger and disgust felt by writer/director Rose Bosche at these events. She handles some of the gruesome brutalities and atrocities in an unflinching fashion that heightens their impact on the audience. A note at the start of the film informs us that all the events depicted here actually happened, even the most extreme. The film also occasionally cuts away from the depravities endured by the Jews to shots of a smiling and laughing Hitler (Udo Schenk) enjoying his retreat high in the picturesque German Alps. The events largely unfold from the perspective of eleven-year old Jo Weismann (Hugo Leverdez) who managed to escape from the camp before his family was sent East. Of the 4500 children sent to the camps, none survived, and only 25 adults survived. Jean Reno lends his formidable presence to the role of a sympathetic doctor who worked amongst the prisoners. Melanie Laurent is also deeply affecting as a dutiful nurse who is appalled by what she witnesses and tries to inform the authorities, to little avail. Not to be missed!

"La rafle", written and directed by Rose Bosch is France's latest retell of the atrocities the country lived during the Nazi occupation. It was a time where French collaborators turned against their own, committing atrocities no decent society had faced in history. The thirteen thousand Jews who were rounded up had not committed any crimes. They were the innocent target of a misguided government who treated them as animals, foreign interlopers in the land where most Jews had lived for hundred of years.

The story centers around a young nurse, Annette Monod and a Jewish doctor, Dr. David Sheinbaum. Annette in the film represents exactly the opposite of the insane times she lived through. She could do but so much, but her concern about the fate of the people she was asked to oversee was genuine. Dr. Sheinbaum was at a disadvantage because being Jewish himself, he was doomed from the start. It was a time where decency disappeared and madness took over.

Melanie Laurent, whom we had admired previously, makes a wonderful contribution to the film. She stands alone against a stronger force that had only a thing in mind, to exterminate a race of people who were seen as enemies. Jean Reno has some good moments in the film. The supporting cast is composed of some of the best performers working in the French cinema today. Unfortunately, most of what is asked of them do not have them doing much. We see Sylvie Testud, Gad Elmaleh, usually seen in lighter fare. Also among the large cast one can see Rafaelle Agogue, Anne Brochet, Catherine Allegret, and many others.

One could only hope the madness from those days will never be repeated again.