Choosing at Twenty

Between 1954 and 1962, about a 100 - maybe even as many as 300 - young Frenchmen refused to participate in putting down the Algerian War of Independence. These ' draft dodgers ' believed in non-violence or were against colonialism. Some of them fled to Switzerland where they received help from Swiss citizens, whereas in France they were condemned as traitors. In 1962, a few months after Independence, Villi Hermann, went to a devastated area near the Algerian - Moroccan border, to help reopen a school. He has recently been back to Algeria where he met a few of his former pupils. He has also made contact with some French ex draft dodgers, who live back in France or in Switzerland.