They were 6 to 10 years old. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Vél’ d’Hiv tragedy, Paris Match reunited with Liliane Pint and the Reiman sisters, Arlette and Madeleine. Only Liliane will escape arrest.
It is one of the darkest episodes of the Occupation. On July 16 and 17, 1942, 13,152 Jews were arrested in Paris on German orders by the French police. Among them 4,115 children including Arlette and Madeleine. They were sent to the Vél’ d’Hiv for four days before being transferred to one of the Loiret internment camps. Today, there are no more than a dozen survivors of what Laurent Joly describes as “a major act of the final solution”. “One in six deportees from France was rounded up that day,” comments the CNRS researcher. In Western Europe, this raid has no equivalent in its immensity and ignominy.
Read also: May 1941, the greenback roundup: France arrests 3,700 Jews
“Lili was lucky,” says Arlette of her friend who escaped the roundup thanks to a police officer. The two sisters lived through the horror. “They never told me about the Vél ‘d’Hiv, or how they got out of it. I learned everything in the book by Arlette and her husband Charles, ‘Children too’”, explains Liliane. Madeleine, nicknamed Mado, prefers to express herself through painting. Pose for a photo with Arlette and Lili? “Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have done it,” she says. But for the 80th anniversary of the roundup, this may be the last opportunity…”
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