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confidential letter defining those categories of Jews
to be arrested and those to be exempted.
Prisoners are to be
transferred to the Occupied Zone for deportation by September 15. The foreign
nationalities sought are the same as those targeted by the Parisian roundups.
Those to be arrested are foreign Jews who arrived in France after January 1,
1936, whether serving in foreign workers groups, held in camps or in supervised
residence centers, or at large. Exempt from arrest are those over the age of 60
or under 18 and those who have served in the French or Allied armed forces, as
well as members of veterans' families. Additional exemptions are specified for
those who have French children or a French spouse, those whose spouses are of
nationalities other than those sought, pregnant women, the sick and disabled,
those whose work has economic importance, and those who have rendered
outstanding service to France or who are well-known for their cultural works.
If a member of a family is exempt but wishes to accompany the others into
deportation, he or she may; and parents who are arrested may leave their
children under age 18 in the Unoccupied Zone. Cado requests prefects to prepare
by August 16 lists of those to be arrested, and he orders them to prevent the
emigration of any deportable Jews, even those possessing exit visas.
Cado's list of exemptions is relatively large, and when estimates of
the numbers of Jews subject to arrest reach Vichy, Bousquet annuls most of the
exempt categories to be certain that he can meet the commitment he has made to
the Germans.
August 12, 1942. In the margin of a telex to Berlin
the previous day, asking whether deportations of Jewish children can begin and
in what numbers, Horst Ahnert, of the Gestapo's Paris office, notes that "the
RSHA has already confirmed in their telex of August 7 that the children of
stateless Jews can be deported in adequate proportions." But again, the August
7 telex did not fix a date for the start of the children's deportations.
August 13, 1942. An assistant to Eichmann, Rolf Günther,
answers Ahnert's August 11 telex. As to the meaning of "adequate proportions"
of children to be deported, Günther specifies that the children "can be
distributed little by little on the anticipated convoys in the direction of
Auschwitz. However, in no case must a transport made up exclusively of children
be sent off."
Soon afterward, a Franco-German meeting is held in the
Paris offices of the Gestapo's Jewish Affairs Department at 31 bis Avenue Foch.
Taking part in this working session are Dannecker; Röthke, who keeps the
minutes of the meeting; and Leguay and his staff chief, Thomas Sauts. (This
will be Dannecker's last official action in the Jewish Affairs Department; he
is being transferred and will continue his work in Bulgaria, Hungary, and
northern Italy.)
Leguay describes the plan for the arrival of trains
from the Vichy Zone on August 17, 26, and 29. (In fact they will arrive on
August 25, 29, and 30.) The Gestapo officers and Leguay agree on details of the
children's deportations; they will be mingled with adults on the transports in
a maximum proportion of one child for each adult. The reason is doubtless
simple – the SS wants French and German railway workers and any others who
may see the trains to believe that the children are being deported with their
parents.
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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