Monday, July 1, 2013
Paris: Monuments to the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver Victims
Paris, France. Monument to the Victims of the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver by Walter Spitzer, dedicated 1994. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.
Paris, France. Monument to the Victims of the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver by Walter Spitzer, dedicated 1994. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2012.
Paris: Monuments to the Deportation to the Velodrome d'Hiver
by Samuel S. Gruber
Paris is a city of monuments - some better known than others. In 1993, a monument was created to commemorate the round-up of 14,000 Jews in Paris and their detainment in the Vélodrome d'Hiver an indoor velodrome (cycle track) at the corner of the boulevard de Grenelle and the rue Nélaton in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, not far from the Eiffel Tower. The deportees, many of whom were women and children, were held in the velodrome for several days before their deportation to transit camps, leading in turn to their removal to Auschwitz, and their deaths.
The deportation
of Paris's Jews was one of many callous acts of French collaboration in
Nazi aims, which have gradually received more attention in France and
abroad. Émile Hennequin, director of the Paris police, ordered
on July 12, 1942 that "the operations must be effected with the
maximum speed, without pointless speaking and without comment."
Local police reports document that beginning at 4:00 a.m. on 16 July
1942, 13,152
Jews were arrested,
of which 5,802 (44%) were women and 4,051 (31%) were children. Some
people were warned by the French Resistance or hidden
and escaped being rounded up. The arrested had to leave their homes
quickly - they could take only a few items; blanket, sweater, shoes and
two shirts. Conditions in the velodrome were horrendous, with little
food and water, few toilets, and no other amenities. The deportation was remembered in Marcel Ophuls now classic documentary The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) and more recently an attempt to visually recreate the internment was made in the
film Sarah's Key,
released in 2010, based
on the 2002 novel of the same name by Tatiana de Rosnay. The book
and film stirred intentional interest in the history of the round-up
and the fate of French Jews, and I suppose led to my own visit to the memorials last when in Paris December.
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