Rafle du Vel d'Hiv

Buses waiting at the entrance to the Velodrome d'Hiver, where almost 13,000 Jews were assembled before being transported to Drancy and other French transit camps. Paris, France, July 16 and 17, 1942.
— Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris. Photo from USHMM.

July 16th and 17th mark the anniversary of the Rafle du Vel d'Hiv - the massive roundup of Jews in Paris, France in 1942.

Yad Vashem describes:

On July 16-17, 1942, in one of the most brutal and overt deportation operations, thousands of French police gathered up 12,884 Parisian Jews-including families with children, and irrespective of sex, age, and physical condition-and placed them in the Velodrome d’Hiver stadium without any provisions whatsoever. In several locations, children were separated from their parents. The victims were loaded aboard cattle cars and sent to Drancy en route to Auschwitz.

This deportation evoked the first substantial manifestations of opposition to the Vichy regime among several segments of the French population. It was impossible to keep the arrests of the Jews secret, and the brutality invoked in separating families was fiercely protested. The fact that most of the arrests were made by French police prompted charges against the force concerning collaboration with the Nazi regime on the part of France and its institutions, particularly with respect to the murder of Jews in this country.

During 1942, nearly 30,000 Jews were deported from Paris. (USHMM)

Susan Redd, a long-time French Teacher, scholar of the Holocaust in France, and member of the Holocaust Center's Education Advisory Committee comments:
"Thank you for posting this sad anniversary of the round-up of Jews by the French 'milice,' who gave more than demanded. The Nazis only requested 12,000 male Jews, but the enthusiastic antisemitic militia gave families of Jews, besides confiscating things of value from them."

Roundup of Jews. Paris, France, ca. 1942.
— YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York. Photo from USHMM.

A recent novel, Sarah's Key, has highlighted this experience and has become a popular read among book groups.