Velodrome d'Hiver

The Vélodrome d'Hiver (German winter velodrome ), also known colloquially as Vel 'd'Hiv' , was a cycling hall in Paris near the Eiffel Tower . The building was built in 1909 as a replacement for a previous hall built for the Paris World Exhibition in 1889 on a neighboring property and was demolished in 1959. In 1942, the more than 13,000 Jews arrested in a mass raid (French rafle ) on July 16 and 17, half of them children, were held there under inhumane conditions before being transported to German extermination camps. This event is known as the “ Rafle du Vel 'd'Hiv ”.

The forerunner

The first Paris winter train (1907)

The Vélodrome d'Hiver was originally located in the machine hall ( Galerie des Machines ), which was built together with the Eiffel Tower for the Paris World's Fair in 1889 . After the world exhibition, Henri Desgrange , editor of L'Auto magazine and later founder of the Tour de France , arranged for a 333-meter cycle track to be built into the hall in 1902. The train itself only took up a third of the huge hall. The first event on December 20, 1903 in the "Vel 'd'Hiv'" was a walking competition as a preliminary program for a standing race with the stars of the time in front of 20,000 spectators. Entry cost seven francs , there were only primitive grandstands and no heating.

• See also: Paris machine shop

move

In 1909 the machine hall was released for demolition and demolished in the course of 1910. Desgrange found a new location for the cycling hall on the corner of Boulevard de Grenelle and Rue Nélaton . The new building also took on the name Vélodrome d'Hiver . A cycling track with a length of 253.16 meters was installed here. The line on which the stayers ideally drove resulted in a lap length of exactly 250 meters. The glass-roofed grandstand held up to 17,000 spectators. The 2700 square meter interior of the track was designed as a roller skating rink. The velodrome was illuminated by 1253 hanging lamps. The construction work was made difficult by a flood of the Seine , which is why the opening of the hall had to be postponed.

Six days race

Six-day race at the Vélodrome d'Hiver in Paris in January 1913.

The first six-day race in the sold-out Vel 'd'Hiv' took place on January 13, 1913. Among the 20,000 spectators were numerous celebrities, including Henri de Rothschild , who received prize money of 600 francs, and the dancer Mistinguett , who offered 1000 francs. The field of drivers included popular racing drivers such as Émile Friol , Émile Georget , the German Walter Rütt and the Dane Thorvald Ellegaard, as well as the Tour de France winner Louis Trousselier .

Due to the war, the next six-day race did not take place until 1921, henceforth annually, usually at the beginning of April. Among the winners of the Paris Six days in the Vel 'd'Hiv' were well-known drivers such as Oscar Egg , Georges Sérès , Émile Aerts , Piet van Kempen , Reggie McNamara , Georges Wambst , Jan Pijnenburg and Rik Van Steenbergen . Jacques Anquetil won the last Paris six-day race in the Vel 'd'Hiv' in November 1958, with Fausto Coppi and Roger Rivière at the start .

From 1926 it became a tradition to elect a "six-day queen," including Edith Piaf , actress Annie Cordy and accordionist Yvette Horner . Last year (1958) the actress Michèle Mercier ("Angelique") won the beauty pageant . Ernest Hemingway and Samuel Beckett were passionate visitors to the Six days as long as they lived in Paris.

Other Events

In addition to six-day races and other cycling competitions on the velodrome such as stalker races and sprint competitions, many other sporting events took place in the Vel 'd'Hiv' , including boxing matches, wrestling matches, ice skating events - with Sonja Henie or the "Skating Vanities" from the USA - and Ice hockey games (the interior space was converted into an ice rink) and circus performances. In 1951 the European basketball championship was held there.

The most spectacular circus show in 1931, organized by American boxing promoter Jeff Dickson, was also the biggest flop in the Vel 'd'Hiv' . Dickson had been able to buy 100 lions cheaply from a circus and put on a show with camels and black performers. But the lions were sick and tired, and gunfire in the air didn't change that. When staff started beating the lions, the audience protested. Dickson initially tried to get rid of the animals without success. They were eventually taken to a German zoo. The debacle caused a loss of 700,000 francs.

The last 14 years

After the end of the Second World War , numerous other events took place in the Vélodrome d'Hiver , such as boxing matches, wrestling as well as roller wrestling, a rodeo , military music festivals, horse jumping , ice shows, circus performances and of course six-day races, but also political events.

The last six-day race in the Vélodrome d'Hiver started on November 7, 1958. Shortly afterwards, a fire broke out in the hall, which made it unusable as an event space. The remains were finally demolished in 1959. On May 12, 1959, a week before the demolition, the artist Salvador Dalí organized an art action on the stage of the Vélodrome d'Hiver , during which he exploded a model of the Eiffel Tower.

Commemoration

After the velodrome was demolished, houses and a building for the French Ministry of the Interior were built on the site. A private plaque of an anti-fascist organization has been on the site since 1946 to commemorate the rounding up of persecuted Jews in the stadium during the Rafle du Vélodrome d'Hiver . Since the site is a reminder of the collaboration between French agencies in the Nazi persecution of Jews during the German occupation , it is considered a political issue in France. The Parisian architect Mario Azagury and the Polish sculptor Walter Spitzer , who is one of the survivors of Auschwitz , designed a memorial near the historic site of the Vel 'd'Hiv' on the Quai des Grenelles , which took place on July 17, 1994 in the presence of the President of the Republic François Mitterrand was unveiled.

literature

• Érik Orsenna. In: L'Exposition coloniale , Paris 1988. Dt. v. C. Josten et al. S. Linster: Gabriel II. Or What does the world cost . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1989. See the chapter Vélodrome d'hiver .
• Liliane Grunwald, Claude Cattaert: Le Vel 'd'Hiv' . Paris 1979.
• Renate Franz, the forgotten world champion . Bielefeld 2007.
• Claude Levy, André Tillard: La Grande rafle du Vel 'd'Hiv , Paris 1967.

Web links

Commons : Vélodrome d'Hiver (Paris)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sport-Album der Rad-Welt 1907, Berlin 1908, p. 72
2. ↑ Tatiana de Rosnay: Sarah's key . With materials for reading circles. Berliner Taschenbuchverlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-8333-0548-1 . Reading circle attachment ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 360 kB) d. Ed., Section “Historical Background” (pp. 402–405). 

Coordinates: 48 ° 51 ′ 13.7 ″  N , 2 ° 17 ′ 20 ″  E