Rasco From RIF

On the last day of January…

January 31st, 2010

I am reflecting this afternoon on the January topic of Religious Freedom in the Social Justice Challenge hosted in 2010 by Hannah, Amy and Natasha.  Each month for this particular challenge I am working to meet all three criteria presented:  read a book, study additional material whether written, film, or other; and perform action related to the topic.

During January I read Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay which relates to the Holocaust period, a topic I regularly study because of what I consider a deficit in my formal education on this period.  I noted in reading a short piece about the novel, Sarah’s Key,  it was based on an event called Vel’ d’Hiv’ which took place in Paris on July 16, 1942.  I was taken aback by the large number of children involved in this roundup which was a Nazi decreed raid, one of several throughout the country to reduce the Jewish population in Occupied France.  More than 10,000 people were rounded up and taken to the Velodrome d’Hiver in Paris which was an outdoor stadium used for bicycle races, concerts, boxing matches and other outdoor events.  Of this large number of people,  it is estimated 4000 or more were children.   The French Jews were held there for up to a week with little food and water  and no toilet facilities in the summer heat, often standing room only available.  These individuals were then shipped by rail to Auschwitz with very few surviving.

The author noted in materials included in the book she knew as she began to learn about  Vel’ d’Hiv’ as an adult she must write about it, but she did not feel a historical novel would adequately portray what she wished to convey, she wanted a contemporary feel to the story as well.  She then created the stories of Sarah, a child of the Vel’ d’Hiv’, and Julia who is an American living in modern Paris who experiences the horror of learning about Vel’ d’Hiv’;  their stories are told in alternating chapters with a surprising lack of confusion in this constant travel of the reading mind between time periods. 

I was viscerally shaken by the book and the research I did on the topic after completing the story; de Rosnay’s writing is quite powerful as I have read numerous books, both fiction and non-fiction, on the Holocaust.  Today as I type these words, I feel some of those powerful emotions and ”close-to-sick” feelings again. 

Only in 1958 was this infamous place in Paris completely demolished.  And it took another thirty-five years before action was taken to officially remember the horror and to honor the lives taken at Vel’ d’Hiv.  In 1993 President Francois Mitterrand commissioned a monument to be erected on the site;  on July 17, 1994 Mitterand’s successor, Jacques Chirac, inaugurated the statue with a ceremony that included strong remarks about the guilt of the French police and gendarmerie in collaborating with the Germans.    The statue sits on a curved base representing the cycle track and is the work of sculptor Walter Spitzer and architect  Mario Azagury.  Interestingly, Spitzer and family members of his were survivors of deportation to Auschwitz.  While the persons represented on the statue represent all French deportees, it is particularly those of Vel’ d’Hiv who are honored with inclusion of children, a pregnant woman and a sick man.  The inscription on the base reads:

The French Republic
in homage to the victims of racist and anti-Semitic
persecution and of crimes against humanity committed
under the de facto authority of the so-called “government of
the French state” 1940-1944

Never forget

Reading this book, studying about the subsequent demolition of the Velodrome d’Hiver and my re-reading of many of the student essays written as part of the Holland and Knight Holocaust Remembrance Project all helped to prepare me better for discussions I have led among youth groups this month on the topic of religious freedom.

Carol H. Rasco

Filed under: 2010 Reading Challenges, RIF Multicultural Literacy Campaign

Tags: Holland and Knight Holocaust Remembrance Project, Mario Azagury, Sarah's Key, Social Justice Challenge, Tatiana de Rosnay, Vel' d'Hiv', Walter Spitzer