Foreword by Michel Warschawski Introduction: THE UNVARNISHED TRUTH PRELUDES TO THE GREAT RAID: THE PREPARATIONS OF THE VICHY GOVERNMENT THE PREPARATION FOR THE RAID ARMED VIGIL THE RAID - The behavior of the police - Suicides - Wanting to do a good job - Public opinion - The raids will continue - The malcontents TO THE VEL D'HIV - Escapes - The evacuation of the Vel d'Hiv THE DIRECTORS OF THE GREAT RAID and their Nazi interlocutors WHAT THE PRESS WAS SAYING WHO COULD PROTEST? Conclusion: FOR THE RECORD... Appendix 1 ORGANIZATION OF THE GREAT ROUNDUP The decrees issued by Emile Hennequin (Chief of the municipal police) on July 12 and 13, 1942 Appendix 2 FLYER TRANSLATED FROM YIDDISH DISTRIBUTED TO JEWISH IMMIGRANTS IN PARIS A FEW HOURS BEFORE THE ROUNDUP FLYER TRANSLATED FROM YIDDISH DISTRIBUTED IN PARIS IN AUGUST 1942 Appendix 3 SPEECH BY JACQUES CHIRAC ON JULY 16, 1995 (Delivered at the ceremonies memorializing the roundup of July 16 and 17, 1942)
PR efforts for this book will be made in conjunction with those for Rajsfus' other book related to the Vel d'Hiv roundups, Operation Yellow Star / Black Thursday (June 2017). Translator Levi Laub is available for events and to speak to press on Maurice Rajsfus' behalf (Rajsfus does not speak English). We are pursuing screenings of the French movie (subtitled in English) "Memories of an Old Child: The Roundup of the Vel' d'Hiv" by Alain Guesnier based on Rajsfus' three books in order to raise awareness about the roundups and the bureaucratic methods of a "law and order" society that represses minority populations. We will be promoting the book to libraries and academics as an important addition to a new trend in scholarship and non-fiction - though written originally in the 2000s, "The Vel d'Hiv Raid" is a perfect example of a "micro-history" of a little-studied event in the wider history of the Holocaust that allows us to see with precision the wider process of raids throughout occupied France. Other micro-histories would include the book "The House by the Lake: One House, Five Families, and a Hundred Years of German History" by Thomas Harding (Picador, 2016) and the compilation "Microhistories of the Holocaust," edited by Claire Zalc and Tal Bruttmann (Berghahn Books, 2016).
Maurice Rajsfus (b. 1928) is an activist and former investigative journalist for Le Monde. He is the author of 30 books, including many examining the Vichy regime and its legacy in French police culture. He has also written about Drancy concentration camp (Drancy, un camp de concentration tres ordinaire, 1941-1944; Le Cherche midi, 2005) and Israel-Palestine, as well as co-authored several illustrated books about history. From 1994-2012 Rajsfus created and circulated "Que fait la police," a "Cop Watch" bulletin with press clippings detailing human rights abuses by French police and detailed in his book Je n'aime pas la police de mon pays L'aventure du bulletin Que fait la police ? (1994-2012) (Libertalia, 2012). Other well-known works by Rajsfus include Les Silences de la police 16 juillet 1942-17 octobre 1961 (l'Esprit frappeur, 2001), Le Chagrin et la colere (Le Cherche midi, 2005), Mai 68 sous les paves, la repression : Mai 1968 - mars 1974 (Le Cherche midi, 1999), and Candide n'est pas mort (Le Cherche midi, 2008), which tackles the thorny issue of the anti-Semitism and legacy of France's famous author, Candide. Several of his books about his experiences during WWII have been brought together to form the basis of a YA comic (Tartamudo editions) as well as a play written and directed by Philippe Ogouz, which was then adapted for film in 2010, Souvenirs d'un vieil enfant: La rafle du Vel' d'Hiv (Memories of an Old Child: The Roundup of the Vel' d'Hiv), directed by Alain Guesnier. Maurice Rajsfus lives in Paris with his wife, and has two sons as well as several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Levi Laub (b.1938) was born and raised in the Bronx. He is an activist and occasional translator. He worked with the Progressive Labor Party in the United States for 15 years mostly as an organizer of immigrant labor in Los Angeles and the California valleys. In 1963 Laub led a group of 59 students to Cuba via Prague, violating and challenging the travel ban for US citizens that was in place at the time. Upon his return to the United States, Laub was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Riots broke out in the hearing room when Capitol police were called in to remove Laub and his supporters. Within the month, Laub and three other organizers of the Cuba trip were indicted in Federal Court for violating the Travel Ban. In U.S. v. Laub, the Supreme Court ruled in his favor, considering it unconstitutional to disallow American citizens their right to free movement. He met Maurice Rajsfus in Paris while doing research into communist militancy in the French Resistance, about which Rajsfus wrote a book entitled Next Year, The Revolution. Michel Warschawski (b.1949) (Mikado) is an Israeli anti-Zionist peace activist and journalist. He was born in Strasbourg, France, where his father was a rabbi. He moved to Jerusalem for Talmudic studies at age 16 and later completed a degree in philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He led the Marxist Revolutionary Communist League (Matzpen, Israeli Section of the Fourth International) until its demise in the 1990s, and co-founded the Alternative Information Center (AIC), an organization uniting Israeli and Palestinian anti-Zionist activists. His books include On the Border (South End Press) and Towards an Open Tomb - the Crisis of Israeli Society (Monthly Review Press).
Maurice Rajsfus has devoted his life to denouncing and combating
racism, fascism, intolerance, and police brutality, while putting
in his texts a good dose of caustic irony.
This episode represents a stain on the honor of the French nation,
with its principles of liberty, fraternity, and equality and, in
particular, the French police as it does other complicit nations
and peoples. [...] As a Vel d'Hiv survivor himself, author Maurice
Rajsfus has made a point of documenting, what is now effectively a
trilogy, the entirety of France's ill-starred history with respect
to its responsibilities regarding Jews and others who suffered in
the Holocaust. -- Thomas McClung * New York Journal of Books *
Maurice Rajsfus, a French Jewish survivor who witnessed this
infamous roundup, dissects it in a workmanlike book, The Vel
D'Hiv Raid: The French Police at the Service of the Gestapo,
which was originally published in France 15 years ago. [...]
Rajsfus, a former investigative reporter for Le Monde, was
14 years old when thousands of police, at Germany's request,
arrested the Jews. His parents, immigrants from Poland, were swept
up in the net and sent on to Auschwitz. He discusses this
personally painful and unforgettable aspect in another book,
Black Thursday: The Roundup of July 16, 1942. -- Sheldon
Kirshner * The Times of Israel *
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