(Jewish Group) Holocaust survivors mark 80 years since mass Paris roundup

[Behind the Aegis]

Family by family, house by house, French police rounded up 13,000 people on two terrifying days in July 1942, dispatching them to Nazi death camps simply because they were Jewish. Eighty years later, France is honoring the victims, and trying to keep their memory alive.

For the dwindling number of survivors of France's wartime crimes, commemoration ceremonies Sunday are especially important. At a time of rising antisemitism and far-right discourse sugarcoating France’s role in the Holocaust, they worry that history's lessons are being forgotten.

A week of ceremonies marking 80 years since the Vel d’Hiv police roundup on July 16-17, 1942, culminates Sunday with an event led by President Emmanuel Macron.

The raids were among the most shameful acts undertaken by France during World War II, and among the darkest moments in its history.

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[spike jones]

1. Not only did the police do the rounding up,

when the Nazi were going town to town in eastern Europe killing all the Jews, to save the German soldier from the “trauma” of murdering men, women, children and babies, the local police and their “deputies’ did most of the killing.