   Monday, July 23, 2012  In Hope of a Better Future, French
Jews Remember the Vel d'Hiv Roundup of 1942       70 years ago
last week (July 16-17, 1942), one of the darkest chapters in the
history of France was being written. Without any warning and in
the middle of the night, over 13,000 Jews (of an expected
22,000) were gathered by French police and taken to the Vel
d'Hiv (velodrome d'hiver or winter cycle track) in Paris' 15th
district.      The Vel d'Hiv roundup or Rafle du Vel d'Hiv was
organized by German Nazi officials but methodically executed by
French police and civil servants serving Marshall Philippe
Pétain's war interim government in Vichy, France. In the
meantime, the exiled French government under General Charles de
Gaulle had relocated to London. Very little was done to prevent
the damages. There were only about 100,000 French members of the
Résistance and only a limited number of them was able to make a
difference.      A roundup of that magnitude would have been
impossible before 1940 becaus