Recently I have been reading a historical fiction book (besides the crucible) about a young Jewish girl in France in WWII. In the book, she describes a horrible 5 days in which she and her family are kept in the Velodrome in Paris without food or water, where thousands died and committed suicide, then shipped off to concentration camps. This struck a chord with me and I decided to investigate. I found out that this was, in fact true. More than 12,000 people were taken from their homes by the Parisian police and held in the heart of Paris. All of them eventually died either in concentration camps or in the building. 12,000 people being killed is a HUGE event, so it perplexed me. Why didn't I already know about this? I continued my research and found that there was a stunning lack of information about the roundup, and even less when I switched to Google France. When the event was mentioned, many websites cited the Nazi Regime as the main perpetrator, not the French Police.
What is it about some cultures or countries that makes them less likely to give out information about their past? France is choosing to ignore the situation instead of spreading the story in order to make sure nobody makes the same mistakes again. The book I was reading mentioned that very few french people were taught about this tragedy in schools, (although I have to question it's accuracy since it is fiction). Do you think that if this horrible event had happened in the United States it would have the same reaction?
No comments:
Post a Comment