On August 25, 1944 Paris was liberated by Allied forces just seven weeks after the Normandy landings. Hitler’s order to have the city razed to the ground, an order executed in the cultural capitals of Warsaw and later by the Allied forces in Berlin, was not realized and French troops loyal to the resistance fought off German forces and reclaimed the city without the use of urban warfare. On the same day that Paris was liberated General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French resistance movement and the future President of the Fourth French Republic, addressed the newly freed nation for the first time: Why do you wish us to hide the emotion which seizes us all, men and women, who are here, at home, in Paris that stood up to liberate
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The operation, known as Vél d’Hiv, was agreed upon by the Vichy government and organized by both the French police and German officials in order to reduce the Jewish population.9 There are disputes of the number of Jews that were rounded up during these two days in Paris; Anne Sebba estimates that 13,152 Jews were rounded up,10 while the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 13,000 were rounded up by French authorities;11 Anne Sebba most likely took her number from the estimates widely accepted by present-day France which is acknowledged on a plaque near the former site of the Vélodrome, where the Jews were taken following the round-ups.12 The same sources also disagree on the number of children rounded up during these two days; Sebba and the memorial plaque at the former site of the Vélodrome state that 4,000 children were rounded up during Vél d’Hiv,13 while the USHMM states it was 3,625 children.14 Regardless of the statistics, Vél d’Hiv did lead to the roundup of native and foreign-born Jews in Paris, with an overwhelming number of them being children; many of these foreign-born Jews had fled to France during the mid to late 1930s to escape the rise of anti-Semitism or upon threat of death following incarceration in concentration camps following Kristallnacht. The initial orders were only concerning adults but, under the orders of Pierre Laval, the French police included children in the deportations as a humanitarian measure since many of these children’s parents had already been deported or detained; in reality, they would have been the responsibility of the state if they had not
The operation, known as Vél d’Hiv, was agreed upon by the Vichy government and organized by both the French police and German officials in order to reduce the Jewish population.9 There are disputes of the number of Jews that were rounded up during these two days in Paris; Anne Sebba estimates that 13,152 Jews were rounded up,10 while the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates that 13,000 were rounded up by French authorities;11 Anne Sebba most likely took her number from the estimates widely accepted by present-day France which is acknowledged on a plaque near the former site of the Vélodrome, where the Jews were taken following the round-ups.12 The same sources also disagree on the number of children rounded up during these two days; Sebba and the memorial plaque at the former site of the Vélodrome state that 4,000 children were rounded up during Vél d’Hiv,13 while the USHMM states it was 3,625 children.14 Regardless of the statistics, Vél d’Hiv did lead to the roundup of native and foreign-born Jews in Paris, with an overwhelming number of them being children; many of these foreign-born Jews had fled to France during the mid to late 1930s to escape the rise of anti-Semitism or upon threat of death following incarceration in concentration camps following Kristallnacht. The initial orders were only concerning adults but, under the orders of Pierre Laval, the French police included children in the deportations as a humanitarian measure since many of these children’s parents had already been deported or detained; in reality, they would have been the responsibility of the state if they had not