Roots of Antisemitism, Collaboration and Clients of Racial Hate: The Vel d'Hiv
April 29 3:30pm Samuel Lutheran Church
Choral Music: Muskegon Chamber Choir
Our guest speaker will be from Paris France and a child who escaped the round up and witnessed his family being taken away.
Monday, April 30, 8:00am - 2:30pm
Further information will be forth coming. MAISD Social Studies director, Mr David Klenn will be the contact person for teachers desiring to bring a team of high school students to share in this learning collaborative.
Individual tickets: $30.00
Reserved table for 8: $200
Reserved table for 10: $250
Guest Speaker
Music
The Commemoration Dinner is a fund raising event for the Shoah Remembrance Committee of Muskegon which is a community based program for commemorating and promoting education on issues surrounding the Holocaust for both children and adults and creating a Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and is under the sponsorship of the Muskegon County Cooperating Churches.
Further information on our speaker on Sunday and Monday will be posted, along with information on the dinner and reservation procedures. For further information please press the "Contact Us" (@) link at the top of the page, or email: shoahrcm@yahoo.com
Buses waiting at the entrance to the Velodrome d'Hiver, where almost 13,000 Jews were assembled before being transported to Drancy and other French transit camps. Paris, France, July 16 and 17, 1942.(USHMM)
The Nazis could not have undertaken the "solution to the Jewish question" without the active participation of individuals, groups and client states. Every nation which was invaded included citizens who willingly supported the deportation and eventual murder of one-third the world's Jews. Those nations also included people who stood silent and said nothing, and yet there was a small minority of people who not only chose not to support the policies but also worked to hide and save Jews. France was a modern, democratic nation, and like Germany of the 1920's and 30's highly educated and cultured. The history of antisemitism in France is similar to that throughout Europe. It became viral with the Nazi conquest of France, giving permission to those who harbored antisemitic beliefs to act on them.
Two recent films, "Sarah's Key" and "La Rafle (The Round Up)" which is a French film, have made the world more aware of the events which unfolded in France. "La Rafle" caused a great degree of tension in France, bringing to light the strain of antisemitism not acknowledged after the war.
The inability of nations to confront their historical participation in, support of and silence before the unfolding events of the Shoah (the Holocaust) leads to a reconstruction of history and denial of the Holocaust. Silence and inaction before the face of bigotry for whatever reason is still silence and inaction and gives permission for the hate continue and encourages its growth.
Following the defeat of France in June 1940 By Nazi Germany, Alsace-Lorraine was annexed and France was divided into an "occupied zone" and a "free zone" placed under the authority of the Vichy government led by Marshal Pétain, a prominent figure in World War One. A government in exile was established at the same time in London by General de Gaulle. It made efforts to rally the Resistance against the German occupants and the collaborationist government.
During the war, some 350,000 Jews were living in France. Over half of the Jewish community was made up of foreign nationals. The first Antisemitic measures were carried out by Germans in the occupied zone. The Vichy Regime issued a "Jewish Statute" in October 1940, which gradually turned Jews into second rate citizens. An Office for Jewish Affairs was created in 1941 to implement Antisemitic measures, including the confiscation of property and companies belonging to Jews. Jews were also required to wear a badge with a yellow Star of David by a German edict in 1942.
Arrests of foreign Jews began in 1940 and by the end of 1941 over 8000 Jews were being held in internment camps administered by French authorities. The nomination of Pierre Laval, an advocate for more extensive collaboration, as head of the government in April 1942 marks a stepping up of repression policy. French Police agreed to collaborate more actively in the arrests in exchange for more independence. It was also the beginning of deportations to concentration and extermination camps. The decision by Adolph Hitler and the Nazi leadership to begin the global extermination of Jews, beginning with European Jewry, was made between July and September 1942.
The event named the Vel d'Hiv was a round-up which took place on 16th and 17th July 1942 and nearly 13000 foreign Jews including women and children were arrested in Paris and brought to the Vélodrome d'Hiver (a stadium) or sent to the Drancy internment camp, to then be deported. In the summer of 1942, some 42500 Jews were arrested in the two zones and deported East.
The atrocity was heightened by two facts. First, the action was carried by the French police on French citizens. Second, the Nazis were specifically after adults who were Jews - not children. However the French police in their enthusiastic relationship with Nazi officials used the children to entrap the parents. French police went to the schools of Paris and took Jewish children , holding them so the parents would come for their children and then incarcerated the whole family.
On 11th November 1942, the free zone was invaded and German and Italian occupation was extended to the whole of France. Many Jews sought refuge in the Italian zone until September 1943 where the policy of Mussolini, though not overly friendly toward Jews gave Jews protection. Others attempted to escape to Spain and Switzerland. Many people managed to hide thanks to Resistance networks or actions on the part of the Righteous among the Nations. As a result, three quarters of the French Jewish population were saved despite active collaboration on the part of the government.
Increasingly unpopular, the Vichy Regime encountered difficulties and in 1943, in the wake of French people's growing protests when the deportations began to include French citizens, Laval refused to revoke French Jews' nationality. This did not prevent deportations from continuing. In 1942, some 42,500 Jews were deported to Nazi extermination camps, approximated 17,000 in 1943 and 16,000 in 1944.
In total, approximately 80,000 Jews were deported from France. A quarter of the Jewish population in France had disappeared at the time France was freed and General de Gaulle marched victoriously through Paris.