Director Claude Berri's introduction on the title screens reads "This film is a true story but seen through the imagination a child particularly sensitive to the tragic events which surrounded him in occupied France. The warm affection of this family of good people who took him in nevertheless leaves him with a certain poetic nostalgia for this time and a deep gratitude toward them." This film is his re-telling and re-creation of the life of a small Jewish boy from in Nazi-occupied Paris, sent by his parents to the countryside to live with an elderly Catholic couple until France's liberation. Forced to hide his identity, eight-year-old Claude bonds with the irascible, staunchly anti-Semitic Grampa, who improbably becomes his friend and confidant.