It was July 16th and 17th: the Vel d'Hiv roundup

On July 16 and 17, 1942, the largest mass arrest of Jews carried out in France during World War II took place in Paris and its surrounding suburbs. At the request of the German authorities, more than 4,500 French police officers and gendarmes participated in this vast operation. In the space of two days, 12,884 people were arrested in their homes. The arrests continued until July 20, bringing the total to 13,152 victims, including more than 4,000 children. Most of them were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, from which only a few dozen returned.

An operation carried out by the French police

Prepared by the Nazi authorities with the support of the Vichy regime, this roundup primarily targeted foreign and stateless Jews living in the Paris region. Starting at 4:00 a.m., law enforcement officers knocked on the doors of families whose names appeared on lists drawn up by the administration. Those arrested were transported in requisitioned buses. Single adults and couples without children were sent to the Drancy internment camp. Families, however, were taken to the Vélodrome d'Hiver (Winter Velodrome) in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, where more than 8,000 people were crammed together for several days.

A tragedy that has become the symbol of the Holocaust in France

Deprived of sufficient food, drinking water, and basic hygiene, the internees of the Vel d'Hiv Roundup lived in stifling heat before being transferred to the camps of Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande in the Loiret region. Their parents were then deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The children, separated from their families a few weeks later, were also sent to the extermination camp, where they were murdered upon arrival. The Vel d'Hiv Roundup remains today the symbol of the French state's participation in the Nazi German policy of persecution and deportation of Jews. On July 16, 1995, in a now-historic speech, President Jacques Chirac officially acknowledged the French state's responsibility for these crimes, ending decades of institutional denial.