The simple fact that I am here to tell my story is amazing.

I was a child of Vel d'Hiv

A Child of France too, but because of a miscommuncation thousands of children died.  A horrible death, starved ripped from our families.

Little bablies, young children, it did not matter, we were not human in their eyes anymore, we were simply Jews. it did not matter our birth certificates said that we were French Citiziens all that matter was that we were Jews.

What was so wrong with being a Jew?

Didn't they know that Jesus himself was a Jew?

We were taken to internment camps and treated like animals, barely fed, and the stench of sickness and death lingered.

Little children should not have to die like this, but they did.

It was a sad state but we grew cold and hard to the sight of death, we had to be strong.

Perhaps if we were strong we would live.

If we could work we would live.

The thoughts that played through my head laying in those barracks those first few nights were many

The little sister who had gone to America to be with relatives.  I had not wanted to go, and neither had she, but in the end I was allowed to stay, she had to leave.

That would save her life.  She was to little to weak, to survive what we surived.

To Be Continued

Info on the Vel. d, Hiv Round Up

The greatest mass-arrest of Jews ever carried out on French soil is known as the Vél’ d’hiv’ Round-up. It involved 13 000 victims from Paris and its suburbs. Over slightly more than two days, the Round-up involved nearly a third of the 42,000 Jews deported to Polish death camps in 1942. The statistics for this terrible year account for over half of the total 76,000 Jewish deportations from France. Compared to the mass-arrests that had previously taken place in Paris on May 14, August 20-23 and December 12, this event is particular for a number of reasons, foremost being its scale. Because they had not developed the reflex of hiding, women and children were this time involved. The action was part of the vast deportation plan of European Jews, devised by the Nazis at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942. The Vél’ d’hiv’ Round-up was a concrete case of execution of the Final Solution. The event also gave the government of Pierre Laval the opportunity to implement French sovereignty. The Vichy Armistice Convention of June 22, 1940, had provided for French sovereignty over its entire territory, but this principle was subsequently violated. René Bousquet, Vichy Secretary General of Police, then led new negotiations with General Carl-Albrecht Oberg. The nomination of these two individuals to their positions represents a landmark event. Bousquet had occupied his position since Laval’s return to power in April. On March 9, 1942, Hitler had nominated Oberg for the position as Supreme Chief of the SS and of the German Police Military Command in France, a position that he occupied from May. The arrival in Paris of Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the Reich’s Central Security Office (RSHA), and his meeting with Bousquet on May 6, 1942, are cited by Klarsfeld as the beginning of the German demands (Klarsfeld, 2001). One month before the Round-up, effective from June 16, it was envisioned that in addition to the 16 to 55 year-old Jews to be arrested in the Paris region, a further 10,000 were to be taken from the so-called free area. The age limit for men was then lowered to 2 years of age and raised to 60 years of age. It was raised further later on.