at school

Press, 9 March 1988, Page 25

at school

the same concentration camp in southern Poland. ) The French Resistance priest died in hospital a week after he was liberated from i Mauthausen camp in Austria in 1945. Malle pieced together the story from his own research, that of other classmates and the Paris Centre for Jewish Documentation, which investigates the fate of French Jews who . disappeared during the Holocaust; What Malle did not know as he waved goodbye to Bonnet was that he would never see his friend again. “We only knew he was in great danger,” Malle said. "We found out in 1945 at the end of the war that they were not coming back.”

By that time, Malle, the sheltered son of a sugar heiress, had learned much about violence and prejudice in the world. Remembering his adolescence, Malle dedicated 1 “Au Revoir les Enfants” to his own children, two of whom are close in age to Quentin, the age when youngsters’ faith in the world of adults may begin to weaken. He said he was considering shooting a sequel to “Les Enfants” which would go on to recount the tragic fate of the priest and the three Jewish boys, and show what happened to him after the Nazis closed the school. “But I don't think it will ever have the impact, the power of this particular story,” Malle said. *