CABU, DRAWINGS OF THE ROUND OF THE VEL D'HIV novelty 2024-2025

In the spring of 1967, the magazine Le Nouveau Candide published the good sheets of La Grande rafle du Vel d'Hiv', July 16, 1942 by Claude Lévy and Paul Tillard (Robert Laffont). To illustrate this series in five episodes, the editorial team calls upon a young 29-year-old illustrator, Jean Cabut, dit Cabu. The book by Lévy and Tillard traces, through documents and testimonies, the progress of the roundup and the confinement to the Vélodrome d'Hiver of more than 8,000 of the approximately 13,000 victims of arrests. Pointing out the role of the French police and the Vichy government in the deportation of the Jews from France by the Nazis, the book provokes a shock in public opinion. It is also a shock for Cabu, who discovers this tragedy too quickly forgotten and puts the best of his talent to translate into drawings the scenes described. From the sixteen precious drawings of Cabu presented by historian Laurent Joly, research director at the CNRS, Véronique Cabut, Cabu’s wife, and the Shoah Memorial propose to trace the key moments of the Vel d'Hiv roundup. This exhibition is also a tribute to an ingenious and popular cartoonist who was one of the twelve victims of the jihadist attack on 7 January 2015 against the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo.

Photo credit: The little girl behind the door. Cabu, 1967. Pen and ink on paper. 29.9 x 40.3 cm. Published in the New Candide, no. 313. © V. Cabut.