Exceptional commemorations around these roundups and the destruction of the old districts of Marseille were held on Sunday, eighty years later. The Minister of the Interior was present to “repair this gap and sign [Er] here his national scope”.
Mo12345lemonde with AFP
Eighty years later, the city of Marseille organized, Sunday, January 29, exceptional commemorations around 1943 roundups and destruction of the old districts during the Second World War, which the mayor, Benoît Payan, described as ” crime against humanity “.
“What happened eighty years ago is a tragedy of which we must keep track of. However, for too long, it was forgotten, erased almost from our collective memory,” said Mr. Payan (Union de la Gauche). “It took eighty years for a mayor and ministers together to recognize this operation [” sultan “] which bears a name, a crime against humanity,” he added, in the presence of the Minister of The interior, Gérald Darmanin, whose presence is experienced as a form of national recognition in the face of these events long remained in the shadow of history.
“It is on the personal request of the President of the Republic that members of the government come here to repair this gap and sign its national scope here,” said the latter, recognizing that these “Marseille roundups and the destruction of Old quarters are far too little reported in history books “.
a crime complaint against humanity in 2019
Between January 22 and 24, 1943, a series of roundups, among the most important with that of the Vél’d’Hiv’six month earlier in Paris, is conducted in the old districts of Marseille, by decision of the Nazis who occupy France and with the active collaboration of the French Vichy regime. Nearly 800 Jews, especially from the Opera district, are sent to the extermination camps.
Then a second roundup aims “La Petite Naples”, the historic heart of Marseille, behind the Old Port. This popular district is void by its inhabitants, for many Italian immigrants. Considered by the Nazis as “a pigsty” and a resistance nest, these districts will then be energized and striped the map. In total, 20,000 people are affected, 15,000 internees in Fréjus (south of France) and 1,642 deportees.
“This moment, I waited for my whole life, for eighty years. It took a complaint for crime against humanity in 2019 by M e Pascal Luongo” so that These dramas “reappear with oblivion”, testified Antoine Mignemi, one of the last survivors of this episode, president of the Saint-Jean collective January 24, 1943, in front of a crowd nourished by Marseillais.
The survey, opened by a specialized pole in Paris, is still underway, but could be classified for the lack of alleged alive identified, according to M e luongo. The former French president Jacques Chirac was the first in 1995 to recognize the responsibility of France in the roundups and deportations of Jews during the Second World War.