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French Children
Question
I am doing a project for my French class about the children in
the Holocaust, mainly about the children in France. If not in France
then anywhere else. I was wondering if you would have this sort of
information, pictures, documents etc. If so I'd be happy to receive
this.
Harry W. Mazal answers:
I am one of the persons who responds to questions addressed to
The Holocaust History Project.
The treatment of French Jewish children by the Nazis was
fully documented by the perpetrators of this dreadful crime.
The documents that led to the murder of over 11,400 French
Jewish children, the names and ages of every child, and the
photographs of 2500 of them can be viewed in:
French Children of the Holocaust:
A Memorial
Klarsfeld, Serge
c. 1996, New York University Press
ISBN 0-8147-2662-3
This huge book (1881 pages) is probably available in any major
library or may be obtained through the interlibrary loan process.
I will only quote one or two paragraphs from the first chapter:
In all, the Germans deported more than 75,700 Jews from
France, transporting most of them to Auschwitz in convoys
of freight cars, each carrying an average of a thousand
people. Only 2,564 deportees are known to have survived
the war. Including the Jews who died of malnutrition and
disease in French camps, there were 80,000 victims of the
Final Solution in France. This was approximately one
quarter of the 325,000 Jews who were estimated to be
living in France at the start of the war.
There were 11,174 children on the 75 major deportation
convoys that were dispatched from France to Auschwitz
and the other Nazi death camps in the East. To this
number must be added 228 children from the Departments
of the Nord and the Pas-de-Calais, who were deported
through Belgium, for a total of 11,402 children deported
from France. In addition, 85 children are known to have
died of disease or malnutrition in French camps, and 31
children, some as young as 15 -- one was only 14 years-
old -- were shot by the Germans, a few while attempting
to escape and the rest by firing squads. Very few of the
11,402 children who were deported, perhaps 300 of them,
survived the war.
I hope that this information will serve as a base for further study.
Yours sincerely,
Harry W. Mazal OBE
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