July 23, 2012
French president blames his country for WWII roundup of Jews
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French President Francois Hollande in Paris on July 22. Photo by REUTERS/Jacques Brinon/Pool
The roundup of thousands of Jews in Paris during World War II was a crime “committed in France, by France,” French President Francois Hollande said.
Hollande was speaking Sunday at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of the largest French roundup of Jews.
Some 13,000 French Jews were deported on July 16-17, 1942 from the Winter Velodrome stadium to Auschwitz, where nearly all of them were killed.
“Not one German soldier, not one was mobilized during this entire operation,” Hollande said.
Hollande also remembered the murder in March of three Jewish students and a rabbi at a Jewish school in Toulouse.
Some 76,000 French adults and children were deported to Nazi death camps during World War II; approximately 2,500 survived.
