Tonight’s film, Misha And The Wolves, has an integral scene that contains subtitles. We’ve transcribed these subtitles for you below in case it’s difficult to read them on the screen. We recommend having this page open on your mobile device. The scene begins about 1 hour and 6 minutes into the film.
SPOILER ALERT: The below transcribed text reveals an important piece of the story.
1:07:46- Emma De Wael told me the truth about what happened during the war. What happened to Robert De Wael, Misha Defonseca’s father.
1:08:07- Robert De Wael worked at Schaerbeek town hall.
1:08:15- He was really very patriotic and very engaged in his role as a reserve officer.
1:08:21- I met Jean-Philippe Tondeur by chance but he had a lot of documentation on Misha Defonseca’s father. So I went to consult Robert De Wael’s file.
1:08:46- On the 10 May 1940, the Germans invade Belgium. They crush the Belgian army during an eighteen day campaign. The king surrenders and Belgium is occupied. Robert De Wael joins the resistance and begins to recruit resistance fighters. As a resistance fighter Robert De Wael was involved in gathering weapons, activating intelligence networks, and transmitting intelligence to the Belgian government which had gone to London. Unfortunately Robert De Wael wasn’t very discreet about his activities for the resistance.
1:09:58- He had a loose tongue. He was proud of what he was doing. Because I knew he had secret documents he even showed them to us at home. My father told him to be careful that he was becoming careless. He risked arrest.
1:10:21- He was denounced by a Nazi collaborator and was quickly arrested. Robert De Wael, his wife, and forty one arrested resistance fighters are deported to Germany and sent to the Brauweiler prison in Cologne.
1:10:53- The Cologne prison had a very harsh regime. He is interrogated by the Gestapo. He starts to scream. Robert De Wael cracks. Robert De Wael made a deal in the Cologne prison. This deal involved him handing over the names of his fellow resistance fighters in exchange for his wife being protected and to once again see his daughter Misha Defonseca.
1:11:45- In August 1942 after betraying his fellow officers as the germans had demanded of him Robert De Wael got one last opportunity to see his daughter and that would be the end for Robert De Wael who was later deported.
1:12:15- Robert and his wife Germaine would both die in the German camps. We called her the traitor’s daughter because it was said that her father sided with the Germans.
1:12:42- The municipality of Schaerbeek would engrave a plaque in the name of the resistance fighters who died during the war. Robert De Wael, whose name was listed last, was later erased.
1:13:11- On the 22 February 2008 once things were very clear we published Robert De Wael’s whole story. The betrayal, the falseness of Misha Defonseca’s account. And in the hours that followed a statement was issued. This is Misha Defonseca’s statement. They called me ‘The Traitor’s Daughter’ because my father was suspected of having spoken under torture. This book this story is mine. It is not the actual reality, but it was my reality, my way of surviving. I ask forgiveness. All I ever wanted was to exorcise my suffering
