Black Thursday

Paris, July 1942. Paul, an idealist student, is warned of a vast roundup of Jews (the one that will remain under the name of “Vel d’Hiv”). In the hope of saving a few people, he wanders all day among the police, buses and families in tears, in the Saint-Paul district, to prevent and offer his help. Not being Jewish, he will not be worried by the police and the person – woman or child – who accompanies him will thus pass through the cracks. Unfortunately, his initiatives, sometimes clumsy, come up against incomprehension or disbelief. “French Jew, I’m not afraid,” says a young woman arrested shortly thereafter. Discouraged, Paul accidentally avoids a girl from falling into the raid and, for several hours, tries to convince her to flee with him. It resists, at the same time for lack of confidence, fatalism and attachment to its traditionalist Jewish family. Often helped by the compassion of Parisians, young people escape the dangers and in the afternoon, discover, esteem, dream of a future, perhaps love. But, having arrived at the windows of the Louvre, left bank, salvation, Jeanne prefers to return to her family and this fidelity may lead to death.