|
|
 |
| |
transferred to the Occupied Zone – but which
were these children?
Some of the missing birth dates were established by
cross-referencing lists of transfers between camps, rediscovered in the
archives of the Veterans Ministry. Even more information was culled from direct
research in departmental archives. In addition to trial evidence, this research
enabled us to publish three books on the transfers to Drancy of Jewish
detainees from the prefectural regions of Marseilles, Nice, and Montpellier
(see list of documentary sources at the end of this section); booklets on the
transfers of Jews to Drancy from the prefectural regions of Lyons, Limoges,
Toulouse, and Clermont-Ferrand are also being prepared.
To further
refine the information on the children seized in the Vichy Zone, I also
examined records in southern and southeastern France in the departmental
archives of the Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Tarn-et-Garonne,
Haute-Garonne, Pyrénées-Orientales, Ariège,
Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and the Savoie, with almost complete
success. Five hundred thirty children handed over to the Germans by Vichy were
identified, and among the mass of names without birth dates on the deportation
lists, only a dozen at most of those under age 18 could not be
identified.
Places of
Birth
There was a remarkable variety of
birthplaces among Jewish deportees. At the time, the French Jewish community
was like that of the United States in terms of origins – France was a kind
of United States in Europe. A majority of foreign-born Jews who lived in France
came from Poland; but the rest came from countries throughout the world, from
nearly all of the independent countries that then existed. Among the children,
a large majority-three quarters of the 11,400 deported – were born in
France. Still, all the principal cities of Europe were represented among their
birthplaces.
Europe's changing borders have left a legacy of varied
spellings. If one writes the name in the German rather than the Polish way,
Lodz becomes Littmanstadt; Romanian rather than Russian, Kishineff becomes
Chisinau; and Hungarian rather than Czech, Munkacevo becomes Munkacs. Wherever
possible, we have used currently established conventions for the name and
spelling of cities and countries. However, when the place is a small locality
with a complex name it can be difficult, if not impossible, to determine a
correct spelling.
Beginning with convoy 55 (June 23, 1943), Brunner instituted a new type of list at
Drancy that did not include birthplaces of deportees. Preparing the first
Mémorial in 1977, I salvaged convoy-by-convoy data processing
lists of the deportees, drawn up between 1945 and 1950 by the Veterans
Ministry. The lists were imperfect but nonetheless very helpful. Those who
created them used the Drancy card index as documentation, and most often were
able to indicate deportees' birthplaces between convoy 55 and the last convoys
in July 1944. For the earlier convoys for which information was incomplete,
from August to October 1942, the Drancy card index was not a help. Those
records were established with information from the interim lists transmitted by
the French camp administrators who were hurriedly sending Jews to Drancy from
the Vichy Zone. Because most of those transferred were sent to Auschwitz within
24 to 48 hours of their arrival at Drancy, the Drancy secretariat's know-
[…ledge]
|
|
| |
| |
| |
FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
 |
Back |
Page 111 |
Forward |
 |
|
