We were walking toward the Seine, having exited at the Bir
Hakeim Metro station, and came across a small triangle of grass with an
historic sign. The words Vel d’Hivre
caught my eye. It turned out that this
was the site of the round up of Jewish women and children that we read about in
“Sarah’s Key”. Once back at the station,
we saw that on the other side of the tracks there is a small memorial to the victims. I had forgotten but was reminded that none of
the children survived the round-up and fewer than a dozen mothers survived at
the end of the war.
It is one thing to read stories (historical fiction) about
the terrible things that we do to each other during conflict and war.
It is another thing to stand at the site of
the velodrome where so many people – women and children mostly – were held and
then sent to concentration camps.
A
sobering experience in the middle of this beautiful place.
