Drancy

And when I see this station, it always gives me a twinge of sadness because in nineteen fourteen all the people charging up to the station, uh, screaming, "À Berlin, à Berlin," "To Berlin, to Berlin." And, and, uh, you know, this is one of the, the-- along with the station to the north, I mean, led the troops to the fronts from which many of them, most, well, many of them, a million and a half never returned.

Um, and also, uh, so many, from these stations, so many Jews were rounded up by the Germans, but above all by the French police, uh, in nineteen forty-two and nineteen forty-three, uh, were sent on their way to Drancy, to the transit camp, uh, north of Paris and then on to, uh, uh, on to the, on to the death camps.

And, uh, a-again, one of the themes is that, that all of this makes, all of this makes this west-east division even more salient, uh, and makes the center periphery, uh, uh, contrast or juxtaposition even more important.

Uh, Louis Napoleon had spent a lot of time in London.

Uh, there were riots that began in the northern suburbs of Paris, and those who've been to Phron-- flown into France and flown into Roissy, uh, when you f- you land at, at the airport, Charles de Gaulle, which I still insist on calling Roissy, uh, you, um, you know, your, your next thought is that, you know, what you'll do the first day in Paris, whether it's seeing old friends again or where you're gonna eat or what you're gonna visit.

Well, around Roissy, uh, are-- not only is Drancy the transit camp where so many people were-- in World War II were-- uh, had to stay before they were set off to the death camps to die, but there were the-- there are the grim suburbs.

And I, and I, as I told you before, I explained why, why French suburbs and other European suburbs are very different.

They're just the, the opposite, uh, of, of American suburbs.