Diary from Rivesaltes 1941-1942
Journal de Rivesaltes 1941-1942
Switzerland 1997. S-16/35mm, Beta/VHS, colour, 77 min.
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From August to October 1942, over 2250 Jews were deported from the internment camp of Rivesaltes to Auschwitz by way of Drancy. Among them were 110 children. Friedel Bohny-Reiter, a nurse with the Swiss Aid to Children, worked in this camp in the South of France. Like many others in the formerly unoccupied zone, it was run by the French. Once a military camp, it had been converted in 1941 into a transit camp regrouping Jewish, Gipsy and Spanish people living in the area or who had fled to the free zone as refugees. Thanks to the young nurse from Basel, many children were probably saved from certain death. The film, that came out in France in the fall of 1997, follows the nurse on a visit to that still intact site as well as through the pages of the journal she wrote in those dark days, published by Editions Zoë, Geneva in 1993.
| Director | Jacqueline Veuve |
| Script | Jacqueline Veuve, d'après le livre «Journal de Rivesaltes 1941-1942» de Friedel Bohny-Reiter. |
| Photography | Thomas Wüthrich, Edwin Horak |
| Sound | Michel Casang |
| Editing | Fernand Melgar |
| Music | Thierry Fervant et Jaël |
| Duration | 77 min. |
| Format | S-16/35mm, Beta/VHS, colour, 25 ips |
| Versions | français; ST: english, deutsch, español |
| Sales DVD/Video | DVD, VHS [order |
| Festivals/Prizes | Festivals: Locarno, Munich 1997, Berlin Forum 1998. Award for the Best Swiss Documentary 1998. Festival Valladolid. Festival les Yeux Grands Ouverts, Créteil. |
| Production | Aquarius Film, Cinémanufacture |
| World Rights | Aquarius Film, Cinémanufacture |
| Distribution Switzerland | Aquarius Film Production, CH-1808 Les Monts-de-Corsier Tél. +41 21 921 18 20 – Fax +41 21 921 78 31 E-mail: info@jacquelineveuve.com – send a message |
| Distribution international | France: Doc Diffusion France 108, rue Damrémont F-75018 Paris Tél.01 48 25 85 66 Visionnement: Bibliothèques publiques, cf. www.culture.gouv.fr |
| Literature | B.Galland, Une femme de cinéma, 2003, p. 38ss. |
Press review
What... another documentary on World War II? No, a devastating film that goes straight to our hearts.
Le Matin, Lausanne, 25.8.97 (Nadine Richon)
For Jacqueline Veuve, the story of Friedel Bohny-Reiter is "like a patch of blue sky on the dark record of Switzerland during the war."
L'Hebdo, Lausanne, 7.8.97 (Antoine Duplan)