The story of Square Léon Serpollet is told in laughter and tears.

Léon Serpollet is our neighborhood park.  It’s not a grand park. It’s simply a place where old men can sit and talk, grandmas can watch their grandchildren on the play equipment, and teenagers can shoot hoops or just hang out.  It’s a place where little kids chase pigeons, and dogs chase balls and wriggle their tails.

The park is named for Lèon Serpollet, who broke the world land-speed record in his steam car in 1902 (75 miles per hour), a record previously held by an electric car.  But it’s not the park’s namesake that I will remember when I look back in the years ahead.  It’s a sign that I will recall, and in particular, one line.

The sign recounts that during the Nazi occupation, the Vichy government passed laws forbidding “dogs and Jews” from using public places, including parks and gardens like Park Lèon Serpollet. In the 18^th arrondissement, where we are staying, over 700 children were sent to the Nazi extermination camps. Then comes the line that is especially poignant, the line that says 90 of the children were babies less than 14 days old “who never had the joy of playing in a garden.”

This sign, like all the others across Europe, reminds us:  Never forget.