Film Calendar
Thursday, November 3, 2005: 
   The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It

Thursday, January 12, 2006: 
    Weapons of the Spirit

Thursday, March 9, 2006
    A Force More Powerful

 
The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It

The story of conscientious objectors in World War II.

Produced by Judith Ehrlich & Rick Tejada-Flores
Narrated by Ed Asner
Editor: Ken Schneider
Associate Producer: Laurie Coyle
Camera: Vicente Franco
Sound: Nick Bertoni
Original Score: Barney Jones
Produced by Paradigm Productions Inc. in association with the Independent Television Service with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting



"Highly recommended. Editor's Choice." Video Librarian

Millions of Americans fought for the liberation of Europe from Hitler's grip during World War II.

Yet 40,000 Americans refused to shoulder weapons in "the good war" because their conscience would not allow them to kill another human being.

In the face of criticism and scorn, the men challenged the limits of democracy in wartime. Many participated in the social movements that transformed America in the generations that followed. This is their story.

 

Weapons of the Spirit                

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.

(description from Amazon.com)

 

Elie Wiesel, witness, author, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
"If you wish to learn what more men and women could have done to save Jews, watch Pierre Sauvage's poignant documentary. It is superb!"

 

 

 

 

A FORCE MORE POWERFUL
When people decide they want to be free... there is nothing that can stop them.

Segment Descriptions

NASHVILLE-"WE WERE WARRIORS"
Rev. James Lawson leads black college students on a campaign to desegregate the city's downtown business district.

INDIA-DEFYING THE CROWN Mohandas Gandhi's famous Salt March of 1930 - during which he inspires Indians to protest the British salt monopoly - is a turning point in the movement for Indian independence.

SOUTH AFRICA - FREEDOM IN OUR LIFETIME Young activist Mkhuseli Jack leads a consumer boycott campaign against apartheid in the black townships of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.

DENMARK - LIVING WITH THE ENEMY During five years of Nazi occupation, Danes' noncooperation undermines the Germans' attempt to exploit Denmark for food and war materiel, and rescues all but a few hundred of Denmark 's seven thousand Jews from the Holocaust.

POLAND-"WE'VE CAUGHT GOD BY THE ARM" The 1980 Gdansk Shipyard strike wins Poles the right to have free trade unions, launches the Solidarity movement, and catapults him to national labor leader and eventually president of Poland. .

CHILE-DEFEAT OF A DICTATOR Overcoming a decade of paralyzing fear, Chilean copper miners trigger a national day of protest of the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, leading to years of nonviolent organizing and culminating in victory in a plebiscite to end his rule.