|
|
 |
| |
Franco's army.) Food, sanitary, and material
conditions in most French camps are disastrous during this exceptionally cold
winter.
1941
January 21, 1941. In a lengthy
report, Theodor Dannecker defines his goals as head. of the Gestapo's Jewish
Affairs Department in France, while describing the need for creation of a
central office for Jewish affairs in France: "To recognize and eliminate Jews
from any participation in vital domains and public life; administration of the
Jews and their property until they are removed."
January 28,
1941. Helmut Knochen, the SiPo-SD commander in France, asks the Ger-man
military administration for the creation of internment camps for foreign Jews
in the Occupied Zone. Knochen cites the precedent of the Vichy law permitting
prefects to detain foreign Jews and the existence of a large number of such
camps in the Vichy Zone.
March 29, 1941. A Vichy decree creates
the Commissariat General aux Questions Juives (CGQJ), a government agency
responsible for administering Jewish affairs in both the Vichy and the Occupied
Zones. Xavier Vallat is named the first Commissioner for Jewish Affairs.
May 14, 1941. In the first mass roundup of Jews in Paris, more
than 3,700 foreign Jews are arrested when they respond to orders to report to a
gymnasium at 2 rue Japy for police "examination" of their status. Most are of
Polish origin (3,430) and the rest are Czech, Austrian, or stateless. They are
sent to the Loiret region camps of Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande.
June 2, 1941. A second Statut des Juifs is decreed by Vichy to
replace the law of October 1940. It further defines who is considered a Jew:
any person with three grandparents of the "Jewish race," or anyone with two
Jewish grandparents who is married to a similar half Jew. Any convert with two
Jewish grandparents who does not have a baptismal certificate dated prior to
June 25, 1940, is defined as Jewish regardless of a spouse's classification.
The new law orders a census of Jews in the Vichy Zone and authorizes prefects
to intern French as well as foreign Jews. It also broadens the list of
occupations forbidden to Jews. Decrees issued in the following weeks and months
further restrict Jewish participation in the arts, publishing, and
broadcasting.
June 21, 1941. Jewish students are limited by a
Vichy law to 3 percent of university students. July 1, 1941. A voluminous
report issued by Dannecker draws a detailed picture of the Jewish population of
Paris, which has fallen from 149,934 on October 19, 1940, to 139,979 in the
spring of 1941. The report counts 34,557 children under 15 years of age, 24.7
percent of the total Jewish population. The numbers reported for the next age
group, those aged 15 through 25, are strikingly small: only 3,838, or 2.8
percent of the total, apparently because they are prisoners of war, interned in
the Loiret camps, in hiding, or simply have refused to comply with the Jewish
census.
July 15, 1941. The internment of 339 Jews in the
Poitiers camp, located on the road to Limoges, is reported. They were evacuated
from the Meurthe-et-Moselle, Belfort, and Nord regions and then were expelled
from the Gironde Department. Among them are many children, and their internment
conditions are deplorable.
|
|
| |
| |
| |
FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
 |
Back |
Page 18 |
Forward |
 |
|
