Sarah's Key

What is Vel' d'Hiv'

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Julia, a writer for "Seine Scenes," is assigned to cover the sixtieth anniversary of the VĂ©lodrome d' Hiver, aka Vel' d'Hiv'. The Vel' d'Hiv was a former stadium located corner of the rue NĂ©laton and the boulevard de Grenelle in the city's fifteenth arrondissement. The stadium was designed as a bicycle racetrack but was also used as an indoor facility for other sports such as ice hockey and wrestling. During the Nazi Occupation of Paris, the Germans turned the Vel' d'Hiv' into holding facility for Jews being sent to temporary internment camps before being sent to their deaths in Auschwitz. The operation was referred to by the Germans as "Operation Spring Breeze".