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The literature and legends of wars occasionally include those moments when foes who encounter one another on the battlefield are seized by an instant of empathy. Soldiers have been trained to kill the enemy, because that is all he really is. Nevertheless, in All Quiet on the Western Front, the hero, to escape the shelling, tumbles into a bomb crater where his companion is the corpse of a German soldier whom he comes to respect. In the film “Joyeux Noel,” soldiers on both sides stopped fighting and fraternized on Christmas 1914. During the same war, my father, having wiped out a German machine gun nest, was bringing back a German prisoner when the two huddled in a crater as the shells roared by overhead and, though neither spoke the other’s language, became friends exchanging photos of their sisters.

There are moments like this in “Come What May,” a French film directed by Christian Carion, opening on September 8, based on reminiscences of participants in the “exodus” in which eight million people, the whole populations of small Northern French towns, packed their possessions and hit the back roads to escape the German army. Nine months earlier Britain and France had declared war against Germany, but the “phony war” ended when they crossed the border into France on May 10, 1940.

Led by their mayor Paul (Olivier Gourmet), and helped by the school teacher Suzanne (Alice Isaaz), with their horses and wagons, bikes and a truck, they set their winding way from the little village of Pas-de-Calais through golden wheat fields and dark green forests toward Dieppe on the northern coast of the English Channel. They are joined by Hans (August Diehl), a German fleeing the Nazis and posing as a Belgian, with his 8-year-old son Max (Joshio Marlon). He had been arrested and jailed in Arras by the Gestapo but escaped when the prisoners were freed during an air raid. He slipped into an underground tunnel where he suddenly encountered a platoon of British soldiers who had been separated from their unit. The Germans find them and kill all but Hans and a Scottish officer Percy (Matthew Rhys).

The Germans bomb the long winding column of fleeing French, killing many, and by the time Hans arrives at the scene, the survivors have moved on and he must search among the graves for his lost son. (During the exodus 90,000 children were separated from their parents.)

Though Hans’s search for little Max, who has left chalk messages for his father on the blackboards of village schools as the column passed through, is one plot line, director Carion, whose own family survived the experience, has several goals. The horrors of World War One hover in the background. After working in a wheat field, Hans and Max rest in a nearby cemetery where “1914-1918” is inscribed on a wall; these are the graves of the war dead. “Military graves are all the same,” he says to his son; but we know that the film’s message is more than that. Indeed, Carion knew he was making this while millions of refugees have been pouring out of the Middle East, many desperately knocking at the doors of Europe, including France, terrified and hungry.

For the most part, the Nazis appear like they do in all Nazi movies. In the first minutes of the film, Hans is startled by a phone ring. It means they have found him. By the time they arrive, he and Max have fled. When an ominous cloud hovers over the caravan and a roar rises from over the hill, it’s the air force sent to bomb them, slaughtering women and children. Somehow, though presumed dead, Max had survived. Wandering through the fields he discovers a dying young German soldier who pleads with him to deliver his papers to the German authorities. Max accepts them and the soldier dies. Carion tells us that this is based on an incident where a group of children discover a dying German who asked them to help him die.

The film’s overall impact is not overwhelming; but, like all subtle art, it leads us to share the sufferings and admire the courage of those who, unlike their graves, are not all the same.

Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., is literary editor of America.

Son of Raymond A. Schroth, of Trenton, N. J., a World War I hero and editorial writer and reporter for the Trenton Times, Brooklyn Eagle and New York Herald Tribune for over 40 years, and of Mildred (Murphy) Schroth, of Bordentown, N. J., a teacher in the Trenton public and Catholic school systems, Raymond A. Schroth, S.J., has spent his life as a Jesuit, journalist, and teacher.

After graduating from Fordham College in 1955--where he majored in American civilization, studied in Paris, and was editorial editor of the Fordham Ram--he served as an antiaircraft artillery officer in Germany for two years and joined the Society of Jesus in 1957. Ordained a priest in 1967, he obtained his PhD in American Thought and Culture at the George Washington University and taught journalism at Fordham until 1979. During that time he was also associate and book editor of Commonweal magazine.

After two years as academic dean of Rockhurst College in Kansas City, he became academic dean of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. In 1985-86 he held the Will and Ariel Durant Chair in the Humanities at Saint Peter's College in Jersey City. From 1986 to 1996 he taught journalism at Loyola University in New Orleans and was adviser to the Maroon, its award-winning newspaper. In 1995 the Southeast Journalism Conference named him Journalism Educator of the year. In 1996 he returned to Fordham as assistant dean of Fordham College Rose Hill and director of the Matteo Ricci Society, which prepares students to compete for prestigious fellowships. Meanwhile, from 1967 he served as a resident faculty member in the student residence halls.

He has published eight books, including: The Eagle and Brooklyn: A Community Newspaper (Greenwood); Books for Believers: 35 Books Every Catholic Should Read (Paulist); with Jeff Theilman, Volunteer: with the Poor in Peru (Paulist); and The American Journey of Eric Sevareid (Steerforth), a biography of the CBS commentator.

In 1999 he moved to Saint Peter's College, where he wrote two books: From Dante to Dead Man Walking: One Person's Journey through Great Religious Literature and Fordham: A History and Memoir, (Loyola Press in 2001-2002). In 2000 Saint Peter's College named him the Jesuit Community Professor in the Humanities. In Spring 2003 he was made editor of the national Jesuit university review, Conversations and will continue to serve in this position until 2013. His The American Jesuits: A History, (New York University Press, 2007), was followed by Bob Drinan: The Controversial Life of the First Catholic Priest Elected to Congress, (Fordham University Press, 2010). He taught a graduate journalism course at NYU in 2004 and journalism history at Brooklyn College in 2006.

In recent summers he has traveled to Gabon, South Africa, Peru, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, France, Thailand, Vietnam, Cuba, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, and China to educate himself, write articles, and take pictures. In 2003 his National Catholic Reporter media essays won the Catholic Press Association's best cultural columnist award. His over 300 articles on politics, religion, the media, and literature have appeared in many publications, including the Columbia Journalism Review, Commonweal, America, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, New York Newsday, Kansas City Star, Boston Globe and the Newark Star Ledger, where he was a weekly online columnist for several years. From time to time he lectures and appears on radio and TV. He is listed in Who's Who and Contemporary Authors. In his free time he swims, bikes, walks, reads, goes to movies and restaurants, and prays.