21 April 2010
Sometimes you learn more by not finding something you’re looking for than by finding it – at least right away. I wanted to visit the Vel d’hiv monument which I read was located on the Quai de Grenelle near the Eiffel Tower. The Vel d’hiv, charming as it sounds, was actually the indoor cycling stadium (its real name is Velodrome d’hiver) that was used by the Vichy government as a temporary collection point for the Jews who had been rounded up prior to being shipped off to the death camps. What is striking about this roundup is that it was enacted entirely by the French gendarmerie under the supervision of the Vichy government and, in particular, the head of the national police - René Bousque. It was only in 1993 that Francois Mitterrand (who maintained a friendship with Bousque to the bitter end) commissioned a monument to be built near the site. However, it wasn’t till 1995 that an official apology was given by Jacques Chirac. In his speech of contrition he said, “France, home of the Enlightenment and the Rights of Man, land of welcome and asylum, France committed that day the irreparable. Breaking its word, it delivered those it protected to their executioners.” More than that, it delivered its citizens to the gas chambers.
I’m not much interested in visiting sites of gruesome murders. I’ve never been to Auschwitz, Dachau or Buchenwald nor do I intend to. However, I’m glad they’ve not been bulldozed and ploughed under like many state sponsored crimes have been. But Vel d’hiv is different. The Germans have gone through their period of atonement. Every German school child was told what the Nazi state had done in their parents’ name. France, however, allowed the mythology of their heroic resistance to flourish while laying flowers each year at Petain’s grave. René Bousque prospered under the Fourth Republic and never spent a night in prison. The vast majority of French know nothing of Vel d’hiv – even less today then back in the 60s when Marcel Ophuls filmed his extraordinary documentary, The Sorrow and the Pity.
Like Ophuls, whose father fled Paris early enough to save himself, my father fled Paris as well – though as an infant in his mother’s arms during the First World War. But my maternal grandmother’s family remained and though I know that a few survived I haven’t yet been able to trace them. Were any held at Vel d’hiv, with just the clothes on their back and a small valise of last minute items thrown together after that terrible knock at the door? Clutching the hands of their terrified children, no one knew what would come next. Perhaps we can at least be thankful that no one knew.
Deciding to visit the Vel d’hiv memorial was, in a way, connecting to those of my family who disappeared without a trace. Whether some of them were taken to Vel d’hiv, I will never find out. But the heart of their community was ripped out so part of them died there as well.
It’s not on the tourist map. In fact the velodrome itself burned down years ago. But the memorial was built near to the site and I had seen pictures of the sculpture which even in two dimensions was moving and inspirational (it was created by a Polish artist whose own parents had fortunately survived the roundup.)
I had no address – just the Quai de Grenelle near the Champs de Mar station. But an important monument like that, I felt, would be easy to find.
After walking a while along the embankment and seeing nothing in the distance that evoked any idea of a memorial, I stopped to ask one of the gardeners trimming a hedge. But he shook his head. There was no Jewish memorial here, he said. And looking at me intently he told me – nothing either for the Algerians. He might have been Algerian, himself, by his appearance. I wondered if Chirac had ever apologised to them.
He was quite insistent, the gardener. And he worked there. Wouldn’t he know of a memorial if there was one? Then I began to wonder whether it had been moved. Perhaps my information was out of date.
On the street level below, I asked a man who ran a tourist kiosk, but he waved me away with the flick of his hand. Further I asked a quick sketch artist, showing him the information I had written on my notepad. He shrugged but suggested I ask someone in the official looking building behind him.
A sign said it was a centre for the research and documentation of youth. I could hardly guess what that meant but upon entry it appeared to be a European project to establish a range of programmes for teenagers. It was empty except for two middle aged women who were staffing the information desk. I went up to them and repeated what I had told the others.
One of the women seemed to understand. She knew Vel d’hiv and told me that it doesn’t exist anymore. But why? I asked. Because it burned down. Ah, yes. That I know. But it’s the memorial to the Vel d’hiv roundup I’m looking for. Memorial? she said. Is there a memorial? As far as she knew there was only a plaque where the building once stood. And once a year, yes, there is a memorial.
I left in despair and half thought of calling it quits. This was my last day in Paris and I didn’t want to spend it all on a wild memorial chase.
But walking further down the street, heading to the Bir Hakem metro stop, I saw in the distance what looked like the top of a sculpture with a man sketching it. Mostly it was hidden from view because the embankment was raised and the entrance at this point was blocked by a fence erected by workmen who were repairing the wall.
Gaining entry meant walking about a hundred yards further and then circling around till I could find the path that led along the Quai. And then I found it. In fact there was, at this particular point, a sign saying what it was. The man who I had seen sketching, however, wasn’t drawing the sculpture. He was just using the plinth as a base to sit upon while he drew the Eiffel Tower.
I stayed there a while communing with spirits past and then took some photos on my digital camera which I brought back to the ladies behind the desk at the youth centre. It exists, I said. And it is something that your youth should know of.
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