Throughout the book, the French lose all sense of comradery and regularly inform on one another. Lucien expects it of everyone around him, various Jewish characters experience it as they run for their lives, and even the Germans note the behavior. Whenever possible, the French keep their heads down and do their best to avoid drawing attention, even in the face of unreasonable danger. They would rather wait out the war, hoping for the best, than risk their lives with open resistance:

They were all going to look the other way; they didn’t want to see what was going to happen to the people waiting in the street. That’s the way the French acted during the Occupation—they didn’t want to see. All that mattered was that they weren’t rounded up (103).

Despite the cultural norm of turning on one another, a handful of French citizens decide to act differently. Manet, Lucien, Bette, Father Jacques, Madame Charpointier, and several unnamed characters, all risk their own lives to protect the lives of Jewish people.

Lucien is repeatedly unsettled by the idea that the civilized and profane can exist in the same person—especially if that person is German. He does not understand how a country that systematically orchestrated the deaths of millions could also produce a funny cartoon or how German soldiers who would coldly shoot a man on the street for being Jewish would also give up their bus seats to the elderly.