Rafle du Vel d’Hiv: la police française au service de la déportation – Documentaire & Témoignages MG

16 juillet 1942 : 13 000 arrestations en 48h. 👋 + de documentaires histoire 👉 http://bit.ly/3lqyFpY 🙏 Abonnez vous !

00:00 Introduction : une image d’enfance déportée
02:00 Le contexte historique de juillet 1942
05:45 Les lois antisémites du régime de Vichy
08:30 Les premières rafles et arrestations
12:00 L’organisation de la rafle du Vel d’Hiv
16:40 Témoignages d’enfants arrêtés
23:00 Le Vélodrome d’Hiver : conditions de détention
30:00 La déportation vers les camps
36:00 Silence et oubli après-guerre
40:00 Les rares retours, les vies brisées
45:00 La mémoire aujourd’hui

La rafle du Vél’ d’Hiv’ est un moment dramatique et horrible de l’histoire française. L’une des pages les plus sombres de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Le 16 et 17 juillet 1942, 13 000 arrestations de Juifs ont été ordonnées par le gouvernement de Vichy. Parmi eux 4 000 enfants. La police française aux ordres de Vichy a organisé cette rafle. Entassés dans des bus réquisitionnés, 13 000 Juifs sont conduits au Vél’ d’Hiv’, avant d’être dirigés vers les camps. Le Vélodrome d’Hiver, théâtre des joutes cyclistes, célèbre pour ses 6 Jours, est devenu un camp de transit pour la mort, le haut lieu de la persécution des juifs en France. Ils y passeront quatre jours de souffrance dans des conditions atroces et inhumaines. ” On était serrés tellement on était nombreux. On n’avait ni à manger, ni à boire “, racontent-ils. Ils n’ont pas oublié les lumières qui ne s’éteignent jamais, les haut-parleurs qui hurlent des noms sans discontinuer.
Les rares survivants de cette extermination massive témoignent dans ce documentaire bouleversant de Gilles Nadeau et Jacques Duquesne. Rachel Jeagle, Rébecca Cukierman et bien d’autres étaient enfants. Tour à tour, ils racontent avec beaucoup d’émotion la perte de leur mère, de leur soeur… Ils n’ont pas oublié les terrains de jeu ” interdits aux chiens et aux juifs “, le couvre-feu imposé.
Parmi les intervenants, l’avocat et spécialiste de la déportation des juifs de France, Serge Klarsfeld, le journaliste et écrivain Maurice Rajsfus et l’historien Jean-Marc Berlière témoignent de la chape de plomb qui a pesé sur ces événements tragiques.

👉 A voir également sur Notre Histoire :
De la compromission à la résistance : Comment l’Église a réagi face à la Shoah ? https://youtu.be/Cskuhk2j3JU
Le procès de Klaus Barbie : quand la France juge un crime contre l’humanité https://youtu.be/dKGxEzTktFM
Berlin 1936 : Comment Hitler a transformé les JO en arme de propagande https://youtu.be/sXFymg02K8I

👉 Découvrez notre playlist dédiée à la Seconde Guerre Mondiale https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqKSNbk66i9l5m1ot0TGV7O5Qd6PbMazj&si=lo66eS0EyiqFtaiB

Ce documentaire a été réalisé à des fins pédagogiques et peut contenir des images qui peuvent heurter la sensibilité de certaines personnes. Si vous êtes une personne sensible, le visionnage de ce documentaire vous est déconseillé.

“LA RAFLE DU VEL D’HIV”
Réalisé par Gilles Nadeau
Tous droits réservés

#VelDHiv #Shoah #SecondeGuerreMondiale #DocumentaireHistoire #NotreHistoire #Mémoire #Holocauste #France1942 #Vichy #Rafle

I’m showing you this picture because these
children, they were all like me. They were all children
from Houdard Street. All those children, up front,
were deported and never returned. But when I see these kids again,
it’s my whole life that I see again because that July 16, 1942,
I saw it from my window and I saw all those who were
arrested by the French police. Hello, hello,
to Piquet, the 1,000 franc bonus on a glass of the sportsmen’s favorite aperitif. The Vel d’Hiv, the winter velodrome. It is a magical place for Parisians. And it was there, it was there that in
1942, in July 1942, the most
important, most symbolic, most significant event of
anti-Semitic persecution in France took place, what is called the Great Roundup, the Vel d’Hiv Roundup. All of this is an event that takes place
in a Paris that is a little deserted because the population has left, the men,
there are many men who are prisoners, there are families who
fled Paris in 1940 and who live there all over the place. So there aren’t many people around
to see what’s going on. And especially no photos. So one day we found a photo
showing from the outside a convoy of buses bringing in Jews
who had been rounded up by the French police and gendarmerie. This is the only photo that
currently exists of the Vel d’Hiv roundup. And as for those who were
in the winter velodrome, there were still more than 8,000 of them,
half of whom were parents, mainly mothers,
and the others were 4,000 children. I wanted, as with all the other
deported Jewish children, to try to find photos
to individualize them, to ensure that it was not a statistic. These are photos of happiness,
but they are all the more evocative because the children were thrown into
the concentration camp universe that they touched upon, since
after a terrible journey, they were immediately murdered, and
in absolutely terrible conditions. So, the France of the time, it must be said, was an under-informed France given
that the only information that came from Radio Paris or from the newspapers
of the time was information that was controlled. There was an organization called
censorship, but it not only cut articles from newspapers,
but also said: Every day, in all newspapers,
you must put such and such information in three columns on the page,
such and such information in one column, etc. And then there were the occupants
who were there, and at first, many people said to themselves: But
basically, they’re decent. And it’s true, they had
received the order. The Germans, who occupied two-
thirds of France at the time, had been told to behave
properly, and lots of people thought things were going pretty well. If you like, they were stunned
by the defeat, you have to see. Defeat means
that a country is falling apart. There are people who are stunned
by defeat, and then there are people who are trying to
rebuild their lives after that defeat. There is the misery of the people,
which is considerable misery. So, it is a world that should
not be judged with today’s eyes. It’s a very complex,
very atomized world, where we don’t know from one region to another what’s
happening in the other region. It is not known what happened to its
neighbors, since in 1940, France was scattered along the roads. A year ago, Marshal Pétain,
accompanied by President Laval, arrived in Montoire,
where he was to be received by the fury. A new dawn was breaking
over defeated and isolated France. The French Vichy government is
looking for scapegoats. We say to ourselves: We have been beaten,
we need scapegoats. Who are we being beaten because of? So we find lots of reasons,
of course, from divorce, permanent autonomy
too, and the Jews. The Jews were patriated. It must be said that France took in a
lot of Jewish refugees in the 1930s. And so, the Vichy government
began to take measures in September 1940, without the Germans
yet requesting them, against foreign Jews,
and also denationalized, denaturalized a certain number
of Jews who had been naturalized French, refugees who came
from Germany, then from Austria, since Germany had invaded Austria. And so, we are going to denaturalize them,
we are going to make them foreigners again, therefore stateless. And at the same time,
the Vichy government took a series of measures prohibiting Jews
from practicing certain professions. For example, you can no
longer be a lawyer if you are Jewish.
The exhibition The Jew and France has just opened in Paris at the Palais Berlitz. At the foot of the gigantic statue
of France, new, freeing itself from Jewish influence,
Captain Césille delivers the inauguration speech. During the first three days,
13,000 people visited this remarkable exhibition, which contains
documents and photographs demonstrating the Jewish peril
in all areas of national activity. These graphs, these tables,
these statistics are truly dizzying. They prove how France,
victim of its generosity and traditional hospitality,
especially since 1936, had become Jewish. All the commanding positions
of the Maison-France were in the hands of the Jews. After having thrown into war a people
deeply attached to peace, they led France towards the most
total defeat in its history. Such was the destructive work
of the Jews in France. From July 10, 1940,
that is to say when Pétain was in full power, he was first surrounded
by a team of extreme right-wingers from the French Action,
from anti-Semitic circles like Xavier Vallat, among others. And immediately, we
understand what is going to happen because one of the first decisions of this
Pétain Laval government is the repeal of the Marchand d’eau decree of April 39 which represses
racial writings and demonstrations. So that is repealed immediately,
which sets the tone. And simultaneously, within a few days,
there was on the one hand the first Nazi order for the
occupied zone which ordered Jews to present themselves
at police stations to declare themselves and at the same time, on October 3,
the status of the Jews which was dictated to Vichy by the Pétain Laval government. So the infernal machine
was set in motion. Anyone who presents himself
in the occupied zone at French police stations,
the work of which is done by the Gestapo, will be registered,
listed and will have their identity card decorated with a Jewish stamp. And more than 110,000 people,
because we had confidence in this France where we had come to seek refuge,
because we were also proud of our community spirit, we were not ashamed to
declare ourselves Jewish, More than 110,000 people therefore declared themselves in
police stations or at the prefecture. This allowed
the first mass arrests on May 14, 1941, which had the specificity
of being a roundup by appointment, so to speak. 5,000
foreign Jews in Paris were sent a small card asking them to come to the
police station for a situation assessment. And all those, all those who come,
are immediately arrested and transferred to
Pithiviers-Bournes-la-Rolande-dans-le-Louarais, under the leadership of the French gendarmes. We cannot imagine that this
summons in itself, which came from the police station,
from the police headquarters, was in fact a remote death warrant
that was signed. Because in fact,
this summons said: Sir, so Mr. Ségal,
my father, you are invited. There was nothing combinatorial. You are invited to come tomorrow
morning at 7:00 a.m., with your identity papers,
for your situation to be examined. So, for my father,
examining the situation means an identity check. I’m in order, I have my papers,
I work, there’s no problem. So, 7:00 in the morning, why? So, naively, it’s so we
can go to work afterwards. And simply, anyone who does not respond
to this summons or anything like that,
would be subject to sanctions, would be exposed to the most severe sanctions. So,
naively, with hindsight, and fearing worse things, my father left. And then, when we came back at noon, my father was no longer there, he hadn’t gone to work as he had thought. And so, I received the justification
some time ago when I asked my friend for a copy of the file
at the National Archives and Reasons for Internment, open the quotation marks,
in excess in the National Economy, close the quotation marks. This is the first act. The second act was on August 20 and 21,
1941, when the roundup was carried out in a test district,
the 11th district, where, from the Republic to the Nation,
around 5,000 people, French and foreign, were arrested this time,
who were locked up in the Drancy camp, which opened on August 20, 1941,
under the direction of the French police and under the surveillance
of the French gendarmerie. So when I talk about
infernal machines, that’s really what was being put in place at that time. What may still be surprising today is the lack of awareness that many people had of German anti-Judaism. Yet, as soon as Hitler came
to power in 1933, there was a day, a few weeks later, when, for example,
in Germany, Germans were forbidden to go into
Jewish shops and all Jewish shopkeepers were ordered
to close their businesses that day. And what’s more, there were
all of Hitler’s texts. As early as 1920, he had launched an appeal
that might seem strange today: Anti-Semites of all
countries, Unite. And in 1921, he made a long speech
saying Why are we anti-Semitic? Where he explained that Semitism
was about the Jews, it was about money, it was about mammon. So, we had to fight against
money since we were socialists. Remember that the
Nazi Party said National Socialism. And the Jews, it was
international capitalism that was destroying national capitalism, which
was deemed acceptable. And then,
between November 9 and 10, 1938, after Munich,
there was what was called Kristallnacht,
Kristallnacht, where the Nazis in Germany destroyed or burned
190 synagogues, destroyed or burned 3,000 shops or businesses belonging to
Jews, and arrested 30,000 Jews. Paris, here lived Édouard Drumont, who,
in France, was the first to address the Jewish problem in all its magnitude. The Institute of Jewish Affairs,
as a memorial in the presence of Madame Drumont, commemorates the memory
of the courageous precursor. On this occasion, Mr. Laville was
kind enough to say a few words to us. Out of 100 French people of old
French stock, at least 90 are true whites, free from any other racial mixture. It is not the same with the Jew. This one comes from crossbreeding accomplished
several millennia ago, 11 between Arians,
Mongols and Negroes. The Jew therefore has a face, a body,
attitudes, gestures which are specific to him. It is gratifying to see that the public is
particularly interested in the study of the characteristics of Jews
presented to them in the morphological section of the exhibition
The Jew and France. Thus the number
of French people who, knowing how to discern the Jew, will be able to
protect themselves against these actions, grows every day. You don’t need the news
to see anti-Semitism. When you went out into the street,
there were some, even just the exhibition of the Jew Sus,
you know, and Lysak, look, the glasses. I wear glasses and
I will never buy Lysak glasses. Never. It said Lysak,
not Isaac, on his store. When we went, I remember, to Dupont,
it was written in big letters: No Jews or dogs allowed. No, we had that everywhere. It was still difficult,
all the prohibitions. We were banned from libraries,
public gardens, cafes, whatever. Another age, it was not important. But in the subway,
you had to take the last car. We couldn’t go to the theater,
the cinema, or concerts. All of this was forbidden. There were hours
that were applied to us. That is to say, at 8:00 in the evening,
you had to be at home. We were no longer allowed to go out. There were still
a lot of prohibitions. And then, we couldn’t do
our shopping like everyone else. That is to say,
we had to go to the stores between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., I think, when the stores
are usually always closed. From the German ordinance of May 29, 1942
on the wearing of the Yellow Star, the Jews were visible. We must read the press’s outburst,
the collaboration on this event which affects a population
from the age of six. I know,
when I left for school on Monday, June 8th with this star,
it was absolutely abominable because I felt like I was being transparent. It wasn’t the worst. The yellow star wasn’t the worst. You have the little ones, the yellow star,
sometimes they go off as kids. But the yellow star, we knew that we had
a Jewish stamp on our identity card. It wasn’t the
yellow star that was the worst. The worst part is all the humiliation. The last subway car, no right,
well, cinema, we don’t care, cafes, we don’t care, but to be pointed at
and humiliated, not just by the star, but really humiliated. It was therefore necessary to display
this yellow star. People looked at us, sometimes they came to
see if it was sewn well. The teasing, the mockery that we
felt, that I felt as a child, because of this star,
was a heavy burden to bear. The day we took away star. The girlfriends I told you about,
Rachel and Irene, Jacobowitch, all three of us,
we dressed in blue, white, red with the star and we went on an
expedition, if you dare say, because for us,
going to the Champs-Élysées was an expedition. This wasn’t our neighborhood. We left for the Champs-Élysées
and walked down the Champs-Élysées all three of us with our stars. And then, it was extraordinary. The women especially came towards us,
hugged us, shook our hands. It was really great. I will not forget that. Paris. Arrival of Mr. Eydrich,
General of the SS, Head of Security, representative of the Rais in Prague,
charged by the Head of the SS and the German police, Mr. Himmler,
to install in his functions Mr. Oberg, Major General of the SS
and the police in the occupied territories. From 1942,
Eichmann began to think about what would be called the Final Solution. At one point, we thought of taking
the Jews to Madagascar, creating a Jewish state there, a little far from everything. But then Echman began to think about this,
and this resulted in the arrival in France of Eindrich, who was
also a Nazi leader, in the spring of 1942. The general took advantage of his stay in Paris
to receive Mr. Buzquet, Secretary General of the Police,
and Mr. Hiller, Secretary General of the Administration. In May 1942, a new
German team came to France. Buzquet is here. The principle that was adopted
is that there is a general commission for Jewish questions. This police station has a police force. This police force will become numerous
and it is they who will arrest the Jews. And Bousquet said: But it is an attack
on French sovereignty. How can you trust a parallel police force
that will be made up of scoundrels, thieves, pimps, etc.?
? Trust the national police. And in return,
give us advantages such as arming the French police,
administrative control in the occupied zone, etc. And between them, we,
the dialogue which ends with: we will arrest the agreed number,
we will have the agreed number of Jews arrested by the French police,
but they will all be stateless Jews. So, in July 1942,
we said to ourselves: We’re going to round up the Jews. We think of adults first,
then the French government says: My God, but the children, what are we
going to do with all these children? So we’ll send the children too. We were first thinking of doing it
in mid-July, then 11 a.m., July 14th, that’s still not really a good
date, so it will be two days later. It filters a little because we had
an operation of this kind, so important,
which means that we have to gather lots of buses and we also have to
gather police officers. The gendarmes are not an operation
that is decided upon in the early hours of the morning. This way, it
takes several days to prepare. There is even a Jewish organization
called UGIF, which is aware that this operation is going to take place. No one, or almost no one
at the time, thought it would end in the gas chambers. We have to be honest, we have to say that. They think they’re going to be wearing it. So, dawn on July 16, 4:00 a.m.,
the agents, in teams of two, equipped with their files, went to the homes of the
people whose arrest had been planned. So, first surprise,
they find far fewer people than expected, and in particular a huge number
of women and children, but very few men. This proves that there were leaks
and that since until now only men had been arrested,
the men went into hiding. We did not imagine that women
and children would be arrested. The day before the Vel d’Hiv raid,
my mother must have heard rumors because some police officers
had said things like: We’re going to come and take the women and children. So she hid me and my sister at my
grandmother’s house, who lived about 100 meters from us, barely. And there we were, hidden, six of us,
with an uncle and an aunt, my grandmother, my grandfather, my sister and me. In the morning there was a loud knock
at the door and I have to tell you that the knocking at the door,
until now, makes me jump. Two police officers, one in uniform,
the other in plain clothes, who said to us: Children, come,
take your things and come join your mother. And on the way, they told us: You
can thank your concierge. She’s the one who told us where you were. My mother was in dark thoughts. She was so
unhappy to see us with her. And I looked around me. I was eight years old, so I probably didn’t have the same
look as my mother. I saw people making
the sign of the cross while crying. I saw others pointing at us,
laughing, throwing stones at us, I don’t know what. So I felt that the climate was
mixed. My mother asked the policeman: Are
you taking away all the people you are arresting? Where are you going to take us?
Beware of me. Because you must know that. Where are you taking us? The policeman said: Listen
, I don’t know anything about it. I have orders. You must follow me. There are buses waiting
on Rue de Belleville. You grab some clothes,
hurry up, we’re already late. And there, my mother went to get
her large dressmaker’s scissors. And then she stuck her large
dressmaker’s scissors under the policeman’s chin and said: Listen,
since you have the courage to come and arrest women and children
without even knowing where you are going to take them,
you are courageous to the end. Here, I’ll give you what you
need, you kill us. Watch out for me, I’m not moving. And then first of all, you see,
my daughter is sick, Rachel is sick. I can’t take him,
it’s not possible. I sensed
a moment of hesitation in him. He gave in. We were violently awakened from our
ecstasy by knocks that sounded like the door was being broken down. It really freaked us out. And then
two policemen or inspectors came in and abruptly asked
my mother to pack for two days. I remember her rushing
to their knees, thinking she was leaving her children. And I remember above all the great
shame I felt when I saw my mother, for whom I had immense admiration, on her knees in front of these police officers who were pushing her away with their feet
in a contemptuous manner. And to the circular from the police director
which is terrifyingly precise
where each intervention, each gesture is explained to the police officer. You don’t have to argue with
the families about the merits. You get the keys,
you check if there are any pets in the apartment,
because it’s much more important to look after their safety
than the people you arrest. You hand the keys over to the concierge,
you don’t argue and it lasts five minutes. It lasted five minutes for us. And there we arrived
at La Bellevilloise, it was a disused cinema where they
had removed all the seats and we were herded inside. There were a lot of us,
crowded together. The
last memories I have of my mother are that she was very agitated
and she went from one woman to another, from one acquaintance to another,
saying: No, we are not going to work in Germany, it is not
possible with very young children. It’s true that I
was already eight years old, but there were children who were
taken as young as two. And a neighbor, Mrs. Brechtstein,
arrived and said: Leah, it was her daughter, who was 15 years old,
a big girl, come and escape through the fire exit. The cops turned their
heads so as not to see her. Tell your children to do the same. So my mother told us: You will
go back to your grandmother’s while you wait and as soon as we come to get you, we will
not do anything to you in the street. And I didn’t want to let go of my mother. I don’t think my sister does either. I clung
to her rather low skirt. I was crying, I was screaming. I didn’t want to let go of my mother. So she did what… She did what she thought she had to do. Pardon. It’s good. And then she slapped us. She slapped us and said: You are
going back to your grandmother’s house immediately. My sister, full of rage
at having been slapped in front of everyone, 13 years old, took me by the hand. We went towards the emergency exit
and sure enough, the two police officers on duty,
two young men, turned their heads so as not to see us. In the evening, about
ten hours later, my sister and I were released
in a completely haphazard manner, which could be called
the inconsistencies of repression. The Vincennes police commissioner
decided to apply the circular strictly, that is, to arrest
only foreigners, but to release
French children only between the ages of 14 and 16. That is to say, the little ones were
not released, and neither were the older ones. It so happened that my sister and
I were in that age group and we were the only ones,
out of about twenty children who were in those pavilions,
where we were locked up, to be released. It was completely random,
there was no particular reason, because it was not done
in the neighboring towns, in Montreuil, in Fontaineil. So that day,
the French police arrested more than 4,000 children, almost all of them French. And there were, I don’t know,
a few hundred of us, maybe 3, 400, 500, it’s difficult to quantify, who
ended up outside. It happened
in a lamentable and disastrous way from an administrative point of view ,
particularly at the Vel d’Hiv, where insufficient toilets had been provided. There were only two doctors, there
was no food, there was no water. It’s the middle of July, the weather is
very nice, very hot. And thousands of people,
about 8,000, will stay for five days, the last ones,
in a winter velodrome where people go crazy,
where children have nervous breakdowns, where there are – the director of the
municipal police considers it a success – only five suicides. I remember this bus stopping
at the bottom of the entrance to the Vel d’Hiv, where there were lots
of gendarmes or police officers outside, which is the same thing. And we were taken into this
Vel d’Hiv, which was already packed with people. There were already people there. And my mother and
I were taken up to the top of the stands because I think they
must have already been full. And then there was confinement. I don’t know how long
it lasted, three, four days. And then it was already horrible because it
was July. Lift the book, if I remember correctly,
I think there was a glass roof and the lights
stayed on day and night. It was packed with people. People were constantly arriving,
but it was already packed. So there, we had nothing to eat. I just remember once being given a madeleine and a sardine in tomato sauce
and especially how thirsty we were. And then because we couldn’t go
on land or in the water, we were really wading through… Especially when we were
on the stands, we were wading through excrement. It was really disgusting. What I also remember
is that it seemed like the lights never went out. Day and night, there were kinds
of globes and, above all, loudspeakers which constantly gave names. This is the word hope. My hope
is that the sky will become beautiful again and that we will sing in peace in our beautiful France. But in Paris, life goes on. People go to the cinema, to the ABC,
where there is a Music Hall show. A Music Hall show that is
proceeding as normal. People go to the cinema,
which is forbidden to Jews, but that was already happening for some time,
there is no upheaval. And at the same time,
there are those who have seen, who have heard. And from the second day onwards,
it spread because people were still talking to each other. And so we have an interesting report
from the police headquarters dating from the second day,
that is, the evening of July 17, which says that public opinion is troubled. I quote this report verbatim,
it is quite interesting. Although the French population
as a whole is generally quite anti-Semitic,
it nonetheless judges these measures as inhumane. And I believe that
the shift in French society towards the problem
of anti-Semitism began there. At the State Police Academy of the
Promotion Theme, Marshal Fétin. Five weeks of living together,
of an active and disciplined life, give these men who will tomorrow have
the always delicate and often perilous task of watching over the
internal order of the country, a sense of duty, a sense of devotion, a sense of national meaning. When the raid of July 16, 1942, took place,
doors were going to be broken down when they weren’t opened. There will be police officers who will
enter some small apartments with revolvers in their hands. There will be armed police officers on the bus platforms,
there are platforms at this time that are open to the air,
who explain that they will shoot
those who try to escape. They There is this will which is
a will, we must not look for words that are too complicated. There is a criminal desire to
separate from this part of the population which is considered
foreign to this country. So, from there, it goes very far. There are no feelings, there
is no tenderness, there is no state of mind. The police officers were placed
in a difficult situation because they had to work between two
police officers who did not know each other. They had five files,
so five families to arrest. Anyone who came back with zero family
could perhaps expect trouble. The police were poor people. Often, women were janitors. It was hard for
someone to be a hero. There is not a single policeman,
they were warned the day before by the RAF, who refused. There was one who
resigned the next day. He was a police officer from the Nogent police station
, whom I was never able to find. There was no revocation. Afterwards, it means that everyone
did the job with dignity and honor,
as a police chief said. The Germans had asked
the police headquarters to release, I believe, 28,000 files,
I was hoping for 22,000 adults. They arrested 9,000
adults and 4,000 children. This shows that
the introduction of the Yellow Star had already turned opinion
in favour of the Jews. There had been leaks, so
many men had gone into hiding because they thought
only the men would be arrested. And moreover,
a certain number of children were able to be saved by the neighbors. As for the arrest of the children,
there is a completely abominable aspect there. The Nazis did not ask for
the children to be arrested. They have it We can ask that after
the roundup, when the men are deported
first, the women and children are sent,
this is the word they themselves use, to the camps in Loiret, in Pithiviers,
Beaune-la-Reurlandes, which have been emptied of their occupants from the previous year. And since the Gestapo is constantly demanding
new convoys of 1,000 people and the decision to
deport the children was not made immediately, we are going to separate the mayors
from their children. They sprayed us with jets of water to separate us, hit the
children’s hands with rifle butts, on the seas. It was done in the… And it wasn’t far from Paris. Good Rolande is near Orléans. And it was done with screams,
with truly terrible cries. And then I knew they
had undressed the seas. It was also to search them,
to pick up and break what they could, if they were hiding wedding rings or a little money, all that. And after the mayors, I remember my mother’s last look. There were mothers on one side
and older children, that is, over 12 years old. And the little ones, I know that my little brother
and I were on one side, my mother on the other, separated with
the gendarmes in the middle. There was a very great silence. My mother waved to us,
it was the last time I saw her. And that wasn’t sad. He had to leave his mother. We were pulling from one side, we were pulling from the other. There were policemen, asparagus
with water, and we were hitting them. In short, we had to let go. That’s when I no longer have my mother. So, there will remain 4,000 children in Pithiviers,
in Bonde-la-Rolande. When Laval or the government
explain that families should not be separated ,
it is a sinister joke because the couples have already been deported,
the mothers will be deported and the children, from August 20,
approximately 42, will be transported to Drancy, a group of two or three
ashes, mixed with others with adults,
then to Drancy, and deported with adults who do not know. A convoy of cattle cars was formed. There were about 1100 people.
There were adults who were in Drancy and 400 kids
from Pétiviers who were with me. And we took these wagons. We were put into these
wagons, it must be said. And we traveled without water,
without food. The children who were crying. And not so much, one might
think that they were suffering. In our train car where we were with my
three friends, there was a little girl, she was barely four years old. She was like all children. That’s where I remember, that
little girl, she was so pretty, so cute. I don’t remember seeing
that little girl cry, but she was there with her big eyes,
amazed to see what was happening. Being there with all these adults. And we arrived at Kauzel. Personally,
there was a selection. Selection is sorting. Logically, this selection was made
at Auschwitz, but there, in Cologne, a station No, before Auschwitz,
the train was stopped. People aged 16 to 45 who were likely to work were brought down. It was a stroke of luck. For me, I think it’s a blessing. I could have been selected for Auschwitz
and perhaps gone to the gas chambers. We took out 250 people, men,
and the convoy left, including my little sister. They left
and the convoy was exterminated. So, the Assembly of Cardinals
and Archbishops of France, which represented the French episcopate
at the time, met shortly after the Great Roundup. There, they were truly moved. While they were rather… They had supported
the Vichy government until then. There they were moved, troubled. They decided to protest. They wondered a lot
about what they were going to do. And finally,
instead of making a public protest,
they decided not to make a public protest, saying: There will
be reprisals against Christians. And what did they decide? It is to send a letter
to Marshal Pétain in Vichy to tell him of their emotion and their disagreement. And what is interesting to note
is that the Vatican representative in Vichy,
whose name was Monsignor Valériaux Valéry,
judged them very harshly, saying: These people are not very courageous. They sent a report to the Vatican
to say that their protest was purely platonic. And then,
it will continue because the roundup of July 16, 1942, was a mass roundup
that would be followed by other roundups. On July 16,
Jews from some countries allied with Nazi Germany were not arrested:
Romanians, Hungarians, etc. In the fall, from the end of
September, October and November, there will be specific roundups. There will be the night of the Romanians, there will
be the night of the Greeks, etc. And then, again, a
mass roundup on February 11, 1943. And then, it will continue
with occasional roundups constantly. This is a deportee, I believe, who had dysentery. But I think that when we
arrived at Buchenval, after several weeks of marches
and deprivation, we were practically all like that. And the comrades from Buchenval,
when they saw us arrive, were still wondering how we could
walk, we were so frighteningly thin. We only became aware
of the importance of this phenomenon from May
1945, perhaps April, because the progression of the
Allied troops from the West and the Russians from the other side who arrived at Auschwitz
and all that, meant that we obtained information. This time, the information is much
freer, obviously, and we are getting information about
what really happened in the camps. Of course, we knew since
before the war that there were camps. Those who say otherwise
are liars. We knew there were camps, but we
had no idea how horrible it all was. And then the character, I would say,
scientific of the extermination of the Jews at that time. We didn’t imagine that, so we know it. And then, there are still some
Jews who come back and who speak little. There is a kind of silence about this. They don’t want to talk because
it might be a clue. So,
we will remain in this situation for a long time, knowing that
something terrible happened and at the same time talking about it little. The first book on the Great Roundup, which is Lévy’s book, was published in 1966. So, almost 20 years after the first
book on the Great Roundup, 20 years after it took place, you can imagine. And in addition, there remains this
phenomenon which is controversial. I know that in France we say
that ultimately, in proportion to other Europeans,
compared to the Jewish population which has been large since 1930,
we have had fewer deaths than most other European countries.
So why? Yet there was a Jewish file which,
apparently, had been well kept, which had been set up by the French police. They were roughly counted. But there was still a fair amount
of compassion, I would say, from people who came to the aid
of the Jews, who sheltered them in the countryside,
in corners of Creuse and Lozère, who knows what else, who hid them
everywhere, in orphanages and all that. I often say that hearts have
been more intelligent than minds.
People, we didn’t realize all the issues and all that this
story meant, but our hearts were still with the distress of the families,
especially the children, and ultimately, many people were helped. And that must be said too,
because it is part of the story. There was no desire among
French institutions after the war to recall the
repressive events driven by the French police. I would like to point out
that when Alain René made his film Night and Fog,
he only obtained the face of the censorship commission on condition
that he scrape the cap of a French gendarme onto the film. So, there was a
cautious French society. It should be remembered
that the film The Sorrow and the Pity was banned from television until 1981. For years, I wrote about it. The first time I was able to
publish an article in Le Monde about this raid was around
July 10, 1982. It was the first time
that a newspaper could actually publish
an explanation of this raid conducted by French authorities. Before, we didn’t want to hear it. The Rehabilitation, obviously,
the entire population condemns the measures that were taken against the Jews,
condemns the Great Roundup, etc. It is really an almost unanimous feeling. The one that emerges. There will not be much cleansing
in the police or the gendarmerie. We must never forget
that the gendarmerie was also involved in this affair. Why won’t there be
much cleansing? On the one hand, because the Liberation
of Paris was achieved in part, only in part, but in part
thanks to the police who gave the signal for revolt and who had
the weapons to revolt. We will not forget this. And then, on the other hand,
I believe because the power that is being established,
the power needs to maintain order in this country where everyone is
doing just about anything. There are the resistance fighters,
but there are also the last-minute resistance fighters who take advantage of the situation
to extort money, to banditry, etc. We need to maintain order. And there is always the shadow of the Americans
hovering, Americans who want to administer this country,
who think that De Gaulle’s government will be incapable
of governing this country and who have planned… The Americans have planned an entire
administration for that. So, to prove
that we are capable of governing ourselves, there is no purge in the police,
because we are in the middle of the police. I think this is the
clearest and simplest reason for this whole story. Prisoners return
every day by the thousand. For them, the nightmare is over. The deportees are also returning. These French people,
because they were the first resistance fighters, because they said no
to the occupier, because they maintained France, were thrown into camps
which were penal colonies, into penal colonies which were already cemeteries. Still reliving their convict book,
they return to life in a free France for which they
sacrificed their own freedom. When the survivors of the camps return,
they will of course demand accountability, but as many communists
or resistance fighters return alive because the concentration camps were
terrible, the mortality rate was terrible, but thousands of them return. Of the 75,000 or
76,000 Israelites deported, there are barely 1,500 or 2,000 survivors. And then the first
deportees arrived. My sister learned from someone that we
had to go to the Lutessia Hotel. In the meantime,
my aunt had given us photos of our parents that she had kept
because we had nothing left. I don’t even have one item from my
father and one item from my mother. Nothing. And we left for the Tessia hotel
with photos of our parents. And there, when we arrived,
we saw these people disembarking in pitiful conditions. And when they landed,
they had already been fed a little. It was terrible. Not a word.
They didn’t say a word. I had long curly hair. Several times
my hair was stroked. I asked: Have you known…
? We realized that we
couldn’t ask for anything. They had a bit of a blank look,
if I remember correctly. They didn’t say a word
and they wouldn’t have said anything. We went through the Lutétia Hotel. And then, after a
very brief medical examination. You know, we weren’t given
much attention. I only remember… No, not at all, then. I can say not at all, almost not. I remember, I think it was a colonel who was sitting there, surrounded by a few colleagues. He saw our files, he followed us. They were looking at the file and they
looked at me and said: And you’re alive in it? As a word of encouragement,
it was really a bit thin. I really looked like
a scarecrow. I could weigh 40 to 45 kilos, but I could no longer walk. And little by little, I regained my strength
and the prisoners, the prisoners of war, it was the Stalag. I will always remember Seta,
the leader of all those prisoners who took me with him. He treated me and I returned to Paris
with these prisoners. I didn’t go to the Lutetia like some,
but with the prisoners, we arrived at the Gaumont Palace. There we were given a sandwich,
a metro ticket and told: You can go home. Unfortunately,
I didn’t have a home. I arrived, my
parents were gone, my sisters were gone, and I no longer had an apartment;
it was occupied. And then I rebuilt my life. I tried, I met… I came home sick, it must be said. And I was treated and I
met my wife. We got married and little by little
we raised two children of whom I am now proud. And then to carry my name too. I am really proud of my children
and I am a great-grandfather. I am a great-grandfather.
Thank you.