By COLlive reporter
French President Francois Hollande led ceremonies Sunday marking the 70th anniversary of the largest roundup of Jews in World War II France, and promised to crack down on anti-Semitism in a country reeling from killings at a Jewish school in March.
Some 13,000 Jews were deported by French police on July 16 and 17, 1942, many of whom were first holed up in harsh conditions at Paris’ Vel d’Hiv, or the Winter Velodrome stadium, AP reported.
Thousands of men, women and children were eventually taken to the Nazi’s Auschwitz death camp, where they were killed.
Speaking from the site of the former stadium near the Eiffel Tower, Hollande told a gathering, which included Jewish leaders, that the crime “was committed in France by France.”
“Not one German soldier, not one was mobilized during this entire operation,” Hollande said.
Hollande paid tribute to the “courage” of Jacques Chirac — the last French president to lead a ceremony there in 1995 — who, for the first time, acknowledged the state’s role in Jewish persecution.
In the crowd was one of Chirac’s close contacts during his presidency – Rabbi Yosef Pewsner, a Shliach who runs the Sinai Educational Institute, which has 3 schools in Paris.
When Hollande met Rabbi Pewsner at the end of the ceremony, the country’s new president remarked how he would like for the Shliach to continue being a visitor at the Elysee Palace.
Later, the president encountered R’ Menachem Ladayov, a Lubavitcher in Paris who runs the French Chabad community website Anachinfos, who was there to put on Tefillin with attendees.
Ladayov approached the President and his Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault, and had the chance to congratulate the president for his touching speech. He wished the President success in all, and finally, wished him to be always “on the side of Israel.”
The President’s answer was: “It is our duty and our priority!”
One good thing about the French is they say what they want when the want.