Casablanca and the Vichy Atonement

Since I posted this, I had a woman Rabbi call me, and, just contributed to the making of this film: http://www.rockethub.com/projects/43758-unspeakable-an-animated-holocaust-documentary

I just got off the phone with Virginia Hambley. I suggested we go see a Rabbi and conduct a ceremony of atonement for her mother’s kindred’s involvement in the Vichy government. She questioned me about this doing any good, after all, she has nothing to feel guilty about. I told her there is the question of the sins of the father being passed down to the son. I told her her father had told me the de Bourmont’s were leaders of the Vichy government. France itself has not made an official apology to the Jews.

This whole idea came about after reading about the movie ‘Casablanca’. Lisa Lund, and Victor Lazio are members of the Czech Resistance. In 1939, the Nazis arrested 1,200 Bohemian College Students and sent them…