"
Would I have been better or worse than these people if I had been German?...
", this supreme question sung by Jean-Jacques Goldman, hauntingly, has just been asked of Daniel Auteuil.
The actor plays a Jewish jeweler forced to cloister himself to escape deportation during the Second World War, in the film
Adieu Monsieur Haffmann
by Fred Cavayé, on display in France since January 12.
Read also
Farewell Mr. Haffmann
: Paris in the gray zone
To the question of journalist Julien Barcilon of
Télé 7 jours
, “
what would you have done under the Occupation?
“, the French actor wisely avoided sinking into anachronism: “ When
I was younger, I said to myself:
“I don't know”.
Today, I would choose the good side, without necessarily being a hero.
I might be on the run...
"
Read alsoHello again Mr. Haffmann!
"
Shut up... but never make a pact
"
In order to flesh out his answer, the actor who was Caesarized in 1987 for his astonishing composition of Ugolin in
Jean de Florette
, remembered the attitude of his father and his mother during the German occupation: "
My parents have lived, I would no doubt have done like them. Shut my mouth when necessary, but never make a pact. They told me about the lack of food, the fear.
»
In his life as an acrobat, Daniel Auteuil knew authentic resistance fighters, Lucie and Raymond Aubrac.
It was on the set in 1997 of Claude Berri's film,
Lucie Aubrac
.
Their courageous behavior during these dark hours will have branded the memory of the actor with a hot iron: “
... They were heroes.
They had, they told me, a dangerous but happy life, which does not mean happy.
They were in their twenties, felt carried by a mission...
”.
Adieu Monsieur Haffmann
by Fred Cavayé, in 2022, inspired by the play by Jean-Philippe Daguerre, with Daniel Auteuil, Sara Giraudeau and Gilles Lellouche...