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| Modus Operandi |
In this powerful documentary, director Hugues Lanneau and screenwriter Diane Pelersztejn (Festival Programmer) claw away at the post-war mythology of their beloved Belgium. What they have unearthed about this bastion of liberalism and tolerance, a haven for Jews in the pre-war years, is certain to shock.
After the Nazi invasion in May 1940, the Belgian government fled to Britain, but instructed those civil servants who stayed behind to work with the Nazis to keep services running and prevent an economic breakdown. That led to Belgian officials collaborating with the Nazi's final solution.
By war's end, as many as 25,000 Jews - almost half of those living in Belgium in the 1930s - had been sent to the Nazi death camps with the connivance of the Belgian authorities.
The film mixes archival photos and films with new interviews to relay the events, and also shows how some locals, including civil servants, aided Jews, while others denounced them.
Modus Operandi is a powerful indictment of a system and a lesson in individual culpability.
