81: Vel D'Hiv Roundup

81 years ago today (July 16, 1942) the Germans and French carried out the Vel d’Hiv Roundup of Jews in Paris.

(Picture of French Jews in the Velodrome d’hiver in Paris during the Vel d’Hiv Round-Up in July 1942. Shortly afterwards they were all shipped to the Death Camps at Auschwitz and Sobibor.)

For 3 days a handful of Germans and 9,000 French Policemen took part in the Raid in both the German-Occupied Parts of France, including Paris, and the Un-Occupied Vichy Collaborating Parts of France.

The French Authorities took the lead to prove their loyalty to the Germans. The Germans said only non-French Stateless Jews and only those over 16 were to be deported, but the French decided to go after every Jew (French and Non-French and any age.)

The French said that to not deport the Babies and Children would not be humane and it was better if they all went to the Death Camps.

A Total of 13,152 People were arrested in Paris during the 1 day Raid:  4,115 Children, 5,919 Women, 3,118 Men. Only 6 Children arrested during the Raid survived the War.

In the end, after the Raid, the Babies and Children were separated from their Parents since it was “easier” to deport the Adults while holding their Children hostage – there was less resistance.

The Round-Ups of 1942 were just the start of the Deportations of French Jews. Of the 340,000 Jews living in Metropolitan/Continental France in 1940, more than 75,000 were deported to Death Camps, where about 72,500 were murdered.

75% of French Jews survived the Holocaust (due to the work of the Jewish French Resistance Groups and the Non-Jewish French Resistance Groups and being so close to Neutral: Switzerland, Andorra and Spain.)

French President Jacques Chirac apologized in 1995 for the complicit role that French Police and Civil Servants played in the Raid.

In 2017, President Emmanuel Macron more specifically admitted the responsibility of the French State in the Roundup and in the Holocaust.