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Dannecker and Röthke remind Leguay that 13
convoys should leave Drancy in August and 13 in September. No doubt they have
been informed by Drancy that there were only three children among the 2,791
Jews who arrived from the Vichy Zone on August 7, 9 and 12; they suggest to
Leguay that Jewish children now be delivered for deportation with the adults.
Anxious to receive trainloads from the Unoccupied Zone as quickly as possible
to fulfill the convoy schedule for September, they ask Leguay to send those due
for that month's deportations as early as the end of August. Leguay promises to
do all that he can and to raise the matter immediately with Vichy. Further, the
Germans suggest to Leguay that French authorities in the Occupied Zone could
turn over Jews found guilty of crimes or misdemeanors and that in the Vichy
Zone they could begin arresting and delivering Belgian and Dutch Jews.
August 15, 1942. The transfer of children to Drancy is necessary
because Eichmann has forbidden convoys made up exclusively of children; now the
Gestapo either must transfer adults to the Loiret camps to mix them with the
children already there, or bring large numbers of children to Drancy to
accomplish the same thing. The latter solution is adopted. On August 15, the
first convoy of children, from Beaune-la-Rolande and Pithiviers, arrives at
Drancy with 5 men, 218 women, and 1,054 children.
An anonymous
eyewitness, transferred to Pithiviers from prison that day, gives the following
clandestine account of the scene as the children leave for Drancy:
…I arrived today in Pithiviers. As I
am arriving, children left without their parents (approximately 1,000) and
those mothers not as yet deported (approximately 250) are being sent off. They
are being sent in the direction of Drancy. It is a terrifying picture! I must
admit that I weakened.... I could not hold back my tears. From here, 3,200
adults, broken up into three groups, are being sent an off to Auschwitz....
Children up to 14 years of age did not go [with the adults].... They stayed
behind in the camp. The fathers, the mothers, the children all go off in
different directions ... as if it had been purposely arranged to split up the
families.... It is virtually impossible to adequately describe to you the
conditions under which these deportations took place... .
They wrenched
children from their mothers' arms and whatever you can possibly imagine as to
what followed would be an underestimation…. As to the children's departure
this morning, Red Cross assistants accompanied them but their number was hardly
sufficient. Little children were walking, crushed under the heavy weight of
their packages. There were instances where the little sisters were sent off to
Drancy while their little brothers were left behind, all but forgotten by the
policemen.... This I saw with my own eyes... .
This
transport's arrival at Drancy was witnessed by Odette Daltroff-Baticie. In an
account of the scene she wrote in 1943 and gave to Serge Klarsfeld in 1977, she
described the children's condition as they entered the camp.
Buses arrive. We remove children in
unimaginable condition. A cloud of insects surrounds them, and a terrible
stench. They have traveled for days and nights from Pithiviers in sealed
boxcars: 90 to a car with one
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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