52′ written and directed by Jonathan Carlon.
Freely adapted from the book ” Les bus de la Honte “, written by Jean-Marie Dubois and Malka Macovich – © Editions Tallandier
With the participation of France Télévisions.
With the support of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region for the writing, the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images in development, the PROCIREP – Society of Producers and the ANGOA and the New Aquitaine Region.
In partnership with the CNC.
For decades, the role of the Parisian bus company in the Final Solution of the Jews of France has remained as the blurred background of the overall system of deportation. The STCRP (Société des Transports en Commun de la Région Parisienne, the forerunner of the RATP), a private law company that was particularly zealous under Vichy, was one of the essential links in the policy of repression of prisoners, resistance fighters and Jews from 1940 to 1944.
95% of the Jewish deportees were transferred by bus from Drancy to the Le Bourget and Bobigny stations on their way to the death camps, or upstream from the Paris stations and the various holding centers. In the key position of the STCRP’s Personnel Department was Lieutenant-Colonel Lucien Nachin. This shadowy figure, who was one of the important cogs in the wheel of the Collaboration and who was undoubtedly protected after the Liberation, embodies a dimension that is symptomatic of the post-war reconstruction years.
This almost perfect oblivion of our country’s history burst into the lives of Jean-Marie Dubois and Malka Marcovich by a curious combination of circumstances. Lieutenant Colonel Lucien Nachin was indeed Jean-Marie Dubois’ maternal grandfather. After the shock of this chilling discovery, Jean-Marie Dubois and Malka Marcovich carried out research for nearly two years in order to reveal in extremis this shadowy aspect of Parisian transportation.
70 years after the Liberation, this documentary lifts the veil on the role of buses in the Final Solution in France, by shedding light on the areas of silence and denial that persist in this dark period of our country’s history and that continue to haunt the destiny of many French families today.