The Ghosts of "Paradis"
Hélène Chauvin
2015 - 52 min - Vidéo - Couleur et Noir & blanc - France

The “Paradis massacre” was a war crime committed by members of the 14th Company, SS Division “Totenkopf” on 27 May 1940 during the Battle of France, at a time when the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was attempting to retreat through the Pas-de-Calais region during the Battle of Dunkirk.
The director of this film grew up in the village of Paradis and tells her story:
“I have returned to Paradis to solve a mystery. When the British soldiers were captured and executed in May 1940, two of them miraculously escaped, saved by a young woman at the peril of her own life. Ever since, she was known as “Madame Paradis”.
The land of my childhood has always been haunted by the memory of this tragedy – and still is to this day, according to the elders. No one ever told me what happened and when I was a little girl, my imagination was ripe with all sorts of ghost stories…"