As a Young Girl of Thirteen...

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In AS A YOUNG GIRL OF 13, Holocaust survivor Simone Lagrange recounts in detail her life before the war, her deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and her role in bringing Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie to justice.

Essentially an extended conversation interspersed with archival images and earlier footage of Lagrange, AS A YOUNG GIRL OF 13 is an engaging portrait of a woman determined to never let her spirit be broken. As a schoolgirl, she threw an inkwell at a teacher who singled out the Jews in her classroom. At Auschwitz she squeezed ink out of the identification number tattooed on her arm. In an anteroom to the gas chambers, potentially moments from death, she refused to stand for a the camp commandant, so infuriating him that he slapped her and had her taken out of his sight-thereby saving her life.

Born in 1930 in St. Fons, Simone, like the rest of her family, saw herself primarily as French rather than Jewish. After the German invasion, her family took in Jeanne, a girl slightly older than Simone who had fled the Nazis. Later, she would betray the family, who were not only Jews but also involved in the Resistance, to the Gestapo.

In vivid detail, Lagrange describes the horror of the cattle cars transporting Jews to the death camp, and the 'horror within horror' of life at Auschwitz, where her mother was killed for smuggling cabbage leaves to prisoners with scurvy. Her father would die after the camp had been abandoned, shot in the head moments after Simone recognized him in a line of prisoners.

Simone Lagrange's story echoes that of many Holocaust survivors. But what truly makes this documentary outstanding is her perceptiveness and the sharpness of her memory. She remembers the notorious Dr. Mengele - Auschwitz's 'Angel of Death' - as a gap-toothed man in baggy pants who taunted her about her mother's impending death and whistled a tune from Tosca before dropping an infant to its death in front of its mother. Klaus Barbie seemed harmless when she first met him because he was stroking a cat. She also vividly conveys the feelings of dehumanization she consistently fought in the concentration camp.

Years after the war, Lagrange was one of the Holocaust survivors who recognized Klaus Barbie. AS A YOUNG GIRL OF 13 includes footage of her testimony at his trial, and a television appearance in which she says she has no doubt he is the same man who tortured her. Today, Lagrange says Barbie's sentence of life in prison was irrelevant-the true value of the trial was in telling the story of what happened to her and others during the Holocaust.

It is a story that she tells eloquently in this remarkable film.

'Highly recommended...Technically, the film is outstanding, with excellent cinematography, smooth editing, fine audio, and excellent use of archival clips and images. Without doubt, this is the well-documented testimony of a courageous woman-truly a 'woman of valor.' Surviving the horrors of the Final Solution and confronting her tormentor, she achieves justice not only for herself, but for those who did not survive.' -Educational Media Reviews Online

'One settles in to watch...wondering what new or unfamiliar dimensions of terror can possibly be learned, what 'lessons' can be gleaned?...Lagrange's story disperses these questions in feelings of sorrow, admiration, and inspiration.' -Cineaste

'Although many Holocaust documentaries tend to be the same, Lagrange's personal abuse at the hands of two of the Holocaust's worst perpetrators gives this film a unique touch.' -Canadian Jewish News

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Main credits

Lagrange, Simone (Interviewee)
Coronel, Elisabeth (Screenwriter)
Coronel, Elisabeth (Director)
Coronel, Elisabeth (Interviewer)
Gaillard, Florence (Screenwriter)
Gaillard, Florence (Director)
Mezamat, Arnaud de (Director)
Mezamat, Arnaud de (Producer)
Mezamat, Arnaud de (Interviewer)

Other credits

Directors of photography, Martial Barrault and Nathalie Duránd; editing, Emmanuelle Jay; original music, Martin Wheeler.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

Klaus Barbie; Lyon; Jew; French jews; holocaust; justice; trial; documentary; film; video; DVD; "As a Young Girl of Thirteen"; Icarus Films,doc,bio; history

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Jeanne had lost her mother in the Exodus

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and the Kadosch family treated her
like a daughter of their own.

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They all share the anxiety when France was
defeated in 1940 and divided into two zones.

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For the next few years,

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Simone lived the everyday life of a girl in the
southern zone. Jeanne, who was slightly older

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decided to leave school. Both girls
picked up the echoes of the war

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as it spread around the world. Lyon was
the center of the French resistance

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and from late 1942, the headquarters
of a ruthless Gestapo unit.

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Their powerful Section 4,

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commanded by Klaus Barbie hunted down resistance
members and Jews with crushing intensity.

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When her father\'s comings and goings
with suitcases became obvious,

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Simone was let into the secret
of some resistance activities.

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After the terrible years of 1942 and 43,

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the prospect of a Nazi victory receded.
And there was New Hope in France.

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Meanwhile, Jeanne had
left the Kadosch family,

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married George the caretaker\'s son
and moved in with him downstairs.

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In June 1944, everything happened at once.

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[non-English narration]

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On June 6th, 1944

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Jeanne looked in on the Kadosch family
before going to visit her husband Georges

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who was being held in (inaudible) prison. They
had no idea that for a paltry sum of money

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Jeanne had informed on them for
being Jews and resistance members.

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Two days later, Simone and her mother were taken
by train to the detention campaign, Drancy,

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a suburb North of Paris. Since 1942,

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Drancy had been the main holding centre in France
for Jews before they were sent to the death camps,

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in most cases (inaudible).

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In the early morning of April 6th,
1944, on Klaus Barbie\'s orders

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the Lyon Gestapo broke into this house
in (inaudible) where 44 Jewish children

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had been given refuge by (inaudible)
and her husband (inaudible).

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All 44 children, their 7
carers and (inaudible)

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were arrested and deported.
Except for one of the carers

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none of them ever came back.

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For over 40 years Simone Lagrange has been invited
to tell her story to groups of school children.

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Today, she\'s in Izieu talking to
students and their history teacher

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from high school, (inaudible).

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We\'ve no idea what (inaudible) had.

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Simone and her mother Jacqueline and her younger
sister (inaudible) and the two little girls,

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Meena and Claudia are taken by
bus to (inaudible) station.

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There the French police turned them over to
Germans who herded them towards cattle trucks.

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The Auschwitz-Birkenau complex
was designed and built

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by the Nazi government to be the
largest of the extermination centers.

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It was here that the first experiments
were carried out with Zyklon B

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the gas which went on to be widely used
for the mass murder of the deportees.

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Auschwitz-Birkenau covered in
area of 40 square kilometers

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and included three main sites.
Auschwitz I was the oldest camp

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and contained over 20,000 inmates in 1944.

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Auschwitz\'s II-Birkenau was
built on Himmler\'s orders

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for the final solution and hundreds of
thousands of deportees were sent there.

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Auschwitz III-Buna-Monowitz
was a factory complex

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where German industrialists made their profits
by working thousands of deportees to death.

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From September 1941 to November 1944

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according to historians lowest
estimates 1,000,100 thousand people

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were slaughtered in Auschwitz.

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Josef Mengele was appointed head
doctor of Birkenau camp in August 1944

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nicknamed the angel of
death he selected victims

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for the gas chambers and also picked out prisoners
to use as guinea pigs in his medical experiments.

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A few days later Simon and Jacqueline joined
another column of prisoner\'s (inaudible) half camp

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where they stayed for three months.
When that camp was evacuated,

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they managed to escape
during a stop in forest.

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They wandered for hours and then finally hid
in a building which the Germans had abandoned.

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Simone and Jacqueline

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were handed over to the care of the
Americans and British. A few weeks later

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they were on a train to Paris.

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With the help of her father\'s brother and
the Jewish community in (inaudible),

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Simone took charge of everyday life.

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Before long, she obtained a grant
to attend a secretarial school.

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[non-English narration]

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