75th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv Round Up

On July 16 2017, the Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations (CRIF) along with the Ministry of the Army organized the national day in memory of the victims of racist and anti-Semitic crimes of the French state and tribute to the righteous of France.

On July 16 2017, the Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations (Crif) along with the Ministry of the Army organized the national day in memory of the victims of racist and anti-Semitic crimes of the French state and tribute to the righteous of France. More than 13,000 Jews were arrested by French police on 16 and 17 July 1942 indeed. Amongst them, about 4,000 were children. Beside Francis Kalifat Crif President, Emmanuel Macron, President of France was present. He invited Benjamin Netanyahu Prime Minister of Israel to attend the ceremony. Ambassadors of Israel to France Aliza Ben-Noun, Ambassador of France to Israel Helene Le Gal, ambassador of Germany to France, French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia and most important survivors and their families were also present.

Originally, the ceremony was a very informal gathering of survivors and their family, many of them being member of Crif. This is the reason for the “Commission for Remembrance” of Crif was charged by the state to organize the ceremony since its inception, when former President François Mitterrand decided to create a national day commemorating racist and anti-Semitic persecutions committed under the so-called “government of the French State“ (1940-1944).

But it was Jacques Chirac, in 1995, who became the first sitting French president to acknowledge the direct country’s complicity and collaboration in the Holocaust, during which 76,000 Jews were deported from France. In his own remarks at the site of the Vel d’Hiv, Chirac, in 1995, put it this way: “France, on that day, committed the irreparable. Breaking its word, it handed those who were under its protection over to their executioners.”

The 75th commemoration marked a major historic rapprochement between France and Israel as it was the first time an Israeli Prime Minister was invited to join the event. The speech of Emmanuel Macron recalled the importance of acknowledging the responsibly of French state in the deportation of Jews and spoke about the seeds of antisemitism and racism present during the III Republic that were the sources of Vichy ideology. Francis Kalifat President of Crif insisted in nowadays Jewish experience in France « From Ilan Halimi to Ozar Ha Torah school, from Hyper Cacher to Sarah Halimi, current events recall to those who would like to forget it that to be a Jew, yesterday like today, it is unfortunately to be a target”.

“We will not surrender to anti-Zionism, because it is a reinvention of anti-Semitism.” said also Macron. “He understands what it is today, not just what it was in the past,” said Yonatan Arfi, the vice president of the Representative Council of French Jewish Organizations.