Ellen's Comments: Pogrom. Holocaust. Killing Fields. Words that evoke the horrors of genocide. Innocent humans forced to live in inhuman conditions, tortured, killed. A less-well-known atrocity of World War II was perpetrated in Paris in July of 1942: the roundup of Vel d'Hiv. French police arrested more than 8000 Parisian Jewish men, women and children and packed them into the Velodrome d'Hiver where they stayed for days with virtually no food, water or medical care until they were moved to transit camps. There men, women and children were separated, and the adults were taken directly to Auschwitz. The children, torn from their parents were housed in stereotypical concentration camp barracks where death was inevitable.
Around these events, Tatiana de Rosnay weaves a story involving three French families whose lives were irrevocably changed by the roundup. Secrecy and guilt are still taking their toll and families continue to be torn apart even sixty years later as journalist Julia Jarmond pursues the truth about the people, places and events. And in the midst of the horror shine those brave few who refused to close their eyes to reality and risked their own lives to help and hide the few who managed to escape.
Zakor. Al Tichkah.
Remember. Never forget.
No comments:
Post a Comment