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[neces…] sary will be done; if the French police
does not want to perform its duty, German police will do what is necessary."
This test of wills is brief: as before at Drancy and at Pithiviers, the
French police will yield and cooperate in the deportations.
The
roundups begin in the evening of February 10 and last two days, yielding 1,549
arrests. As Knochen cynically observes, "It is evident that the two categories
of Jews [French and stateless] will in this case be deported." Of the 1,518
Jews sent to Drancy for deportation, there are 599 men, 869 women, and 50
children.
The February roundups are carried out in conditions frightful
for the Jewish victims and damaging to the self-respect of the French police.
The raids require a substantial police commitment: 735 policemen in civilian
clothes, 200 in uniform, 300 gendarmes, and 215 municipal guards. Among the
arrested Jews 4 are in their 90s, 54 in their 80s, 444 in their 70s, and 689 in
their 60s. There are 41 children aged 11 to 20, and 22 children under10, 7 of
them 3 years old. The ages of most of those arrested are relatively high
because the preceding roundups have targeted adults under 60 and the young. The
older Jews apparently believed age limits would be observed as in the past, and
they would be spared; but the prior limit was revoked precisely because older
stateless Jews could easily be arrested in numbers. The French officials know,
after all, that these older Jews, speaking little or very poor French, will not
know where to hide, nor will they have the strength to try.
The
roundups begin with arrests of the children. Röthke had already put
inspectors from the Prefecture on their tracks. On February 4, he made
inquiries at the UGIF to obtain the addresses of each of the Jewish children's
homes in the Paris area and their present rosters, with lists by name and
nationality of the children sheltered.
At the orphanage of the
Rothschild Foundation, "on February 9 police inspectors pick up lists naming
the children placed by the UGIF. On February 10 at 6:30 in the morning, five
inspectors enter, awaken 12 children in the dormitory and quickly take them
away. On February 11, at one in the morning, police return and take away four
young girls aged 15 to 16."
At the Lamarck and Guy Patin children's
centers, "on February 6 inspectors visit to gather the names of foreign
children. On February 10, arrests of 22 children ranging in age from 4 to 15 at
the Lamarck center and ten children at the Guy Patin center, one of whom is 4
years old."
Most of these children had been interned in Drancy earlier
but had been released to the UGIF, which sheltered them in the centers.
March 9-19, 1943. Under mounting German pressure to take steps
to deport Jews from the Italian Zone of France, Mussolini ratifies decisions
that will in fact protect Jews as long as the zone exists. Under Italian
occupation since November 1942, much of south eastern France, from Switzerland
to the Riviera – including Nice, the Alps, and the Savoy region – has
been an area of relative refuge for Jews.
Foreign Minister Joachim von
Ribbentrop instructs Hans Georg von Mackensen, the German ambassador in Rome,
on March 9 to inform Mussolini that Italian occupation authorities are
obstructing the Final Solution in France, and to demand that he give authority
over the Jews to the French, the SS, or the
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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