the story of Sarah Castel, survivor of the Vel d’Hiv

80 years ago, 5-year-old Sarah Castel was living in central Paris with her parents and three siblings when French police came to arrest her. “My parents never came back”, she says, in tears. For a moment, she seems to relive July 16, 1942, the day of the Vel d’Hiv roundup. “They made us go down in fourth gear. They didn’t have time, they had so much to take”she continues.

13,152 Jews were arrested in two days. Methodical arrests, organized by the French authorities. Most of those rounded up were taken to the winter velodrome. Only one photo survives of this tragic day, a snapshot of the buses that transported the Jews to the Vel d’Hiv. “It was horrible, it smelled bad, it was very hot. All day, all night, there were these bluish lights that drove you crazy. (…) There were people who understood, who were crying, who were shouting “, she recalls. Others have “thrown from the top of the bleachers onto the track”.

Embarked on cattle trains with her family, Sarah Castel was sent to the camp of Pithiviers (Loiret). His brothers and sisters as well as his parents were sent to the death camps. “The last image I have of the family, of my parents, is this separation by barbed wire”she says.