National Day of Remembrance for the Victims and Heroes of Deportation

The Toulon ceremony took place at the Mémorial de la Déportation et de l’Internement. Many towns in the Var (Le Lavandou – Le Pradet – La Valette-du-Var, in particular) also celebrated this day, which recalls the unimaginable horror of the Holocaust and the Second World War. Each year, this commemoration reminds us of the millions of people who lost their lives. It reminds us that their families and loved ones were also affected by deportation and mass extermination. Today, the accounts of the survivors are the strongest and most striking trace of this particularly dark period in our history. And, as Elie Wiesel, writer, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, forcefully declared: “There is a victory greater than that won on the battlefield. It is the victory over hate and fear. It is the victory of memory over forgetfulness. Let us never forget”