On July 16 and 17, 1942, in a half-occupied France, Vichy agrees to hand over thousands of Jews to Nazi Germany. In total, 13,152 people (including nearly 6,000 women and more than 4,000 children) were arrested in Paris, taken to the Vélodrome d’Hiver and then deported to the death camps. With the help of testimonies from survivors, unpublished archives and 3D images, director David Korn-Brzoza looks back on the biggest mass arrest that affected the Jewish community in France during the Second World War. his documentary, The Roundup of Vel d’Hiv, shame and tearsis broadcast Monday, July 11 on France 3 at 9:15 p.m.
Franceinfo: Why do you think this documentary is necessary today?
David Korn-Brzoza: NOTWe are commemorating this year the 80th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv roundup, and this is especially important because the last witnesses are disappearing. We were lucky enough to find eight people who were between 8 and 17 years old at the time. So they remember precisely the raid, what happened the morning when the French police knocked on their door, this moment when they had to follow, with their parents, the other people who were arrested . Some joined the Vélodrome d’Hiver that morning, others were taken to temporary arrest centers. They are the last witnesses. Collecting their words is capital. In ten years, they will no longer be there. They tell what the more than 12,000 rounded up in those days of July 1942 could never tell.
“Obviously, these people that we had the chance to interview are miraculous. They tell us how they were able to escape and survive.”
How long did you work on this documentary?
I worked on this film for two years, after having inherited material cleared up by a whole team, and more particularly by the historian Laurent Joly, who has been working on this period of history since he was a university, at know for more than fifteen years. I then did six months of research, followed by a six month period of writing. I had as it were acquired my knowledge of the existing archives in relation to the Paris of that time, in relation to the police archives as well. In addition, Laurent Joly, for his part, was aware of files and sub-files lost in the depths of the prefectures, or small files referenced at the Shoah Memorial or in other places of memory.
Enriched by all this, my job has been to tell this story as best as possible, and to combine historical finds, unpublished documents, the words of witnesses and great history. An exciting challenge. The investigation and filming required six months of work, then there were six months of editing and finally six months of technical finishing.
Why did you need to use 3D animations?
There is only one and only image of the Vel d’Hiv roundup, which was censored by the Germans, because they feared that the Parisians would revolt if they knew about this coup. net. So we had to work on animations. Because otherwise, how to tell a story when there are no images? It was a huge challenge. We therefore resorted to 3D techniques because, ultimately, the Vel d’Hiv, for many, remains something very vague.
“I think that when you ask people on the street about the Vel d’Hiv roundup, they know it was a roundup of Jews during the Second World War. But the Vel d’Hiv, I’m not sure they know what it is.”
So we wanted to show precisely where it was in Paris, namely in the 15th arrondissement, not far from the Eiffel Tower. We thus understand, step by step, how this roundup took place.
In your film, you show archives that have never been used before…
It is true that we reveal documents on which Laurent Joly has carried out research, such as, for example, files on people who committed suicide during the roundup and who had, until now, never been released. . We also recovered thousands of files of Jews which had been established by the police headquarters and which had never been seen. There are also several photos of the “greenback roundup”, which is one of the first roundups that took place in May 1941, during which Jews were summoned to police stations. These summons were actually traps. Jews who went there were arrested.
About two years ago, the Shoah Memorial inherited a case of negatives found by collectors in a flea market in Rennes. There were a hundred photos from the “greenback roundup” so we used some of them in the documentary. Besides, I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we find unpublished negatives from this period in an attic in France or Germany. After all, archives are a bottomless pit.
What do you think of the theses which attempt to rehabilitate Marshal Pétain as the savior of the Jews of France?
It makes no sense ! Foreign Jews were the first to be rounded up, and that made sense because it was easier. They spoke with an accent, they had fewer friends who could hide them, fewer networks. The Germans proceeded in stages: arrest of opponents, arrest of foreign Jews, arrest of communists and resistance fighters, then French Jews followed. Let us also remember that the 4,000 children locked up in the Vel d’Hiv were of French nationality. A few months before the Vel d’Hiv, nearly 750 French Jews had been arrested and deported. The Vichy service served the occupier. It is maddening to see how some want to rewrite history. It’s tragic.