Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on July 14, 2022

Issued on: 09/07/2022 - 09:51

Over two days in the summer of 1942, French police carried out Western Europes largest wartime roundup of Jews, acting on orders from occupying German forces and their French allies in the Vichy Regime.

On July 16 and 17 of that year, a total of 12,884 Jews men, women and children were snatched from their homes in Paris and in neighbouring suburbs. Some were taken directly to an internment camp in Drancy, northeast of the capital. The rest were crammed into the Vlodrome dHiver, a stadium located on the banks of the Seine in the 15tharrondissement(district) of Paris, which would give its name to this sinister chapter in French history.

To mark the 80thanniversary of this tragic event, FRANCE 24 has gathered the eyewitness accounts of six survivors of the Vl dHiv roundup, all of them children at the time. They recall the shock and horror of those days, and the extraordinary circumstances that allowed them to avoid deportation to Nazi death camps.

Click below to read our web documentary.

>> Watch on France24 :Eighty years after Frances Vl d'Hiv roundup of Jews, its last survivors recount ordeal

Excerpt from:

Holocaust: Meeting the last witnesses to the Vl d'Hiv roundup, 80 years on - FRANCE 24 English

Category: Holocaust
Tags: