My wife and I went to see Sarah's Key at the movies yesterday. The plot is based on the round up of Jews in Paris on July 16 - 17, 1942 and their internment in a bicycle race track stadium named Vel d'Hiv before being shipped to temporary camps in France before being shipped to Auschwitz. The story of a young girl picked up in the round up is researched by an American journalist who happens to living in the same apartment. Without giving anything away, its a great movie and leaves you haunted about a historical event that is not widely known.
I spent a little time researching it. While the Germans were behind the roundup, the Vichy government performed the arrests and the transport so that the entire thing appeared to the work of the French government. One thing struck me while reading the summary in Wikipedia: The French Jews turned themselves in!
After 1847, the census did not include information about religion. When the Germans occupied France, they directed all Jews to register. Many did and these files were the source of the information for the roundup. If the French Jews had ignored the directive, the Germans would not have had the information to arrest them!
Keep this in mind the next time your government wants information about you!
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3 comments:
Good reminder. If the gov't wants info on something, it probably means that some bureaucrat, somewhere, has a plan for controlling it.
Interesting... I'll add it to the list to view. thanks!
Interesting... I'll add it to the list to view. thanks!
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