Inconsistencies, Philippe Calleux

A fresh perspective on the Holocaust, inspired by a true story.
Pierre Gerson, a wealthy Jewish bourgeois, friend of ministers, well-served by society, honored, courted, decorated, was not worried at the beginning of 1940, despite the dark threats coming from Nazi Germany, so convinced was he that he was an intrinsic part of the French people. Under the Maréchaliste shadow, he still believed that his social status, his brilliant war, and his military achievements in the service of the Nation would protect him from any prosecution. Although many friends suggested he emigrate, he decided that a Frenchman should remain in France and settled in the South, in Antibes. Events would soon shake his certainties: the laws on the status of Jews of 1940 and 1941, the Vel' d'Hiv' roundup and the one closer to him, in Saint-Martin-Vésubie. Pierre Gerson nevertheless settled into his role as an internal exile, striving to maintain, for his wife and himself, a social, even worldly, life. The Italian occupation of the Alpes-Maritimes protected him from Nazi persecutions until the end of Mussolini's regime, when everything changed. The Gestapo seized control of the entire region and brutally arrested all Jews, French or not. Pierre Gerson finally grasped the full horror of the situation. Several of his friends were arrested and taken in cattle cars to unknown destinations. Then, the nightmare began.