Events

From 29 May 1942, the German authorities in Paris, and in occupied France, required Jewish people to wear the yellow star to discriminate and isolate them, following the practices adopted in Germany and other occupied countries. Thereafter, with agreement of the Vichy government, they were responsible for conducting the round-up of the Jewish people throughout the summer in 1942. Originally, the round-up that was to become known as Vél d’Hiv was planned for the French national holiday of Bastille Day on 14 July but was delayed.

The objective of the round-up was to target 28,000 foreign and stateless Jews. They largely comprised those Jewish people who had moved to France in the wake of Nazi persecution at home. To enable the round-up to take place, they needed to obtain the collaboration of the Vichy regime and the French police. Think of those that were needed to achieve this which included French police officers and bus drivers.

Initially, it was intended to exclude children. However, then-French Prime Minister Pierre Laval suggested that it would be “humanitarian”  for children to be kept with their parents. It was at the time the largest round-up in Western Europe during the Second World War. Around 4,000 children were amongst those arrested in Paris. As the round up took place on 16-17 July, some were taken straight to Drancy, a transit camp before being deported East. The rest from the round-up were detained at the Vélodrome d’Hiver.

Before the war, this had been a cycling track used for events including foil fencing, boxing, cycling, weightlifting, and wrestling at the French Olympics in 1924. It was unsuitable for holding 7,000 detained people and, with a glass roof, it meant they stifled in the July heat and froze at night. They were held for over five days (some sources say seven) with no food, water, or adequate facilities until being transferred to transit camps. At the end of July, the children were separated from their parents until, finally, they too were deported to Auschwitz in groups, sometimes of up to 800 at a time. It is estimated that around one hundred in total from the numbers detained in the raid were to survive.

Aftermath

On 16 July 1995, then-President Jacques Chirac apologised for the complicity of the French nation during the round-up and persecution of the Jewish people during World War Two. He stated that “these black hours will stain our history forever and are an affront to our past and traditions… the criminal insanity of the occupiers was assisted by the French, by the French state”. France still grapples with her complicity.

Once the war finished, various officials were dealt with for their roles.

Pierre Laval, formerly prime minister, and a lawyer himself, was arrested and tried for treason. After the defeat of France in 1940, he served in Philippe Pétain’s Vichy French Government and became the head of the government from April 1942 to August 1944. It was during this period that many French people including the Jewish people were deported. The argument that was made is that the French were unaware of the extermination camps, being aware only that the deportation was as labour for the Germans. Laval had reached a compromise seeking only to forfeit those Jewish people who were not French citizens. As highlighted above, Laval was associated with deporting children.

His trial

Laval’s trial began on Thursday, 4 October 1945 when he was charged with collaboration with the enemy. He had three defence lawyers (Jaques Baraduc, Albert Naud and Yves-Frédéric Jaffré), one of whom had been a member of the Resistance and believed Laval to be guilty, urging him to plead that he had acted under constraint. The court hearings were punctuated by hostile outbursts from the jury. Ultimately, Laval absented himself from the court and the trial with a sentence of death being handed down in Laval’s absence. His lawyers were refused a retrial. He was shot on 15 October 1945 following a failed suicide attempt.

In conclusion, today, there is now no velodrome. Instead, there is a square and memorial garden surrounded by modern flats. There are posters and poignant photographs of children who were deported. These all lie in the vicinity of the former location of the Vél d’Hiv round-up with their commemorative plaques recording lives once lived, only to end tragically, as numbers of the murdered.