Over two days in the summer of 1942, French police carried out Western Europe’s largest wartime roundup of Jews, acting on orders from occupying German forces and their French allies in the Vichy Regime.
On July 16 and 17 of that year, a total of 12,884 Jews – men, women and children – were snatched from their homes in Paris and in neighbouring suburbs. Some were taken directly to an internment camp in Drancy, northeast of the capital. The rest were crammed into the Vélodrome d’Hiver, a stadium located on the banks of the Seine in the 15th arrondissement (district) of Paris, which would give its name to this sinister chapter in French history.
