On Holocaust Memorial Day this year I blogged here a monologue-poem about finding out what happened to my father's uncle in France during the war. I was just this evening doing a trawl looking for information about what the French government and judiciary have or have not done in relation to the wartime Vichy government, when up popped this:
http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/Deux-Sevres/Actualite/24-Heures/n/Contenus/Articles/2012/02/03/Niort-l-hommage-aux-143-deportes-juifs
It tells how the town of Niort has just put up a cenotaph for the 143 Jews of the 'departement' of Deux-Sevres deported during the war. This took place, as you can see, on Feb 3 this year. My father's uncle and his wife Rachel lived for a short while at 11 rue Mellaise in the town of Niort. We know this because a couple of years ago some letters turned up in the possession of a distant relative and several were from my great-uncle to our relatives in the US.
His name and his wife's name appear on the lists of Jews in a book about Deux-Sevres so in theory they should be on the cenotaph ('la stele). To date I don't know.
