The Vel d’Hiv Roundup
The big raid of July 16, 1942 to round-up Jewish families was organized and carried out by the Paris police. They arrested 13,000 Jews including some 4,000 children, and housed them temporarily in the indoor bicycle stadium called the Velodrome d’Hiver, also referred as the Vel d’Hiv. The event is known as the Vel d’Hiv Roundup. In the mural, the Vel d’Hiv is written in cartoon-style graffiti like bicycle inner tube with blowouts and patches. Attached is the story of the artist’s cousin, Henry Herzhorn, who did not survive the Roundup. For a long time the French didn’t admit complicity in it, but finally as the artist was finishing the mural on February 5, 1992 the French government designated July 16 as a National holyday of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust from France. It was several years later that the government admitted that the French police was complicit in the Roundup of the Vel d’Hiv.
# 4. The Vel d’Hiv Roundup July 16, 1942 1992 8’ X 30‘ Paint and Paper on Canvas