RAFLE DU VEL'D'HIV

The 'Rafle du Vel'd'Hiv' (the "great round-up" or "great raid" of the Vel'd'Hiv, from the French abbreviation for Vélodrome d'hiver, or winter velodrome) is the name of the July 16, 1942 raid during the Vichy regime, when the French police forces arrested 12,884 Jews at the request of the Gestapo. Of the total, 4,051 were children — which the Gestapo had not asked for — 5,082 women and 3,031 men. They were all sent to Drancy deportation camp, guarded by French police, before being sent to concentration camps. This event proved the eagerness of Pétain's regime to collaborate with Nazi Germany in carrying out the Holocaust. The total of 12,884 represents more than a quarter of the 42,000 French Jews sent to Auschwitz in 1942, of whom only 811 would return after the end of the war. On July 16, 1995, French president Jacques Chirac officially recognized the responsibility of the French police in this raid.

Contents

Bibliography

Primary sources

Film documentaries

External links

Bibliography

★ Jean-Luc Einaudi and Maurice Rajsfus, ''Les silences de la police - 16 juillet 1942, 17 octobre 1961'', 2001, L'Esprit frappeur, ISBN 2-84405-173-1 (Rajsfus is an historian of the French police, the second date refers to the 1961 Paris massacre under the orders of Maurice Papon, who would later be judged for his role during Vichy in Bordeaux)

★ Maurice Rajsfus, ''Jeudi noir'', Éditions L'Harmattan. Paris, 1988. ISBN 2738400396

★ Maurice Rajsfus, ''La Rafle du Vél’ d’Hiv’'', Que sais-je ?, éditions PUF

Primary sources

★ Instructions given by chief of police Hennequin for the raid.

Film documentaries

★ William Karel, 1992. ''La Rafle du Vel-d'Hiv'', La Marche du siècle, France 3.

External links

★ Le monument commémoratif du quai de Grenelle à Paris

★ Le site de la memoire des conflits contemporains en région parisienne

★ Occupied France: Commemorating the Deportation

★ additional photographs

★ French government booklet

★ 1995 speech of President Chirac