Drancy

Internment and Transit Camp

Photo

The Drancy transit camp (Photo)

This multistory complex served as the Drancy transit camp. The overwhelming majority of Jews deported from France were held here prior to their deportation. Drancy, France, 1941–44.

Credits:

• Federation Nationale des Deportes et Internes Resistants et Patriots

The Drancy camp was located in a northeastern suburb of Paris, also called Drancy.

In August 1941, the Germans established an internment camp at Drancy, following the arrest of more than 4,200 Jewish men in Paris.

Beginning in summer 1942, Drancy became the major transit camp for the deportations of Jews from France. Until July 1943, French police staffed the camp under the overall control of the German Security Police and SD. In July 1943 the Germans took direct control of the Drancy camp and SS officer Alois Brunner became camp commandant.

The camp was a multistory U-shaped building. It was originally built in the 1930s as a housing project. Prior to becoming an internment camp, the building had served several other purposes, including as a prisoner of war camp. Barbed wire surrounded the building and its courtyard.

In addition to this multistory building, there were other sites located throughout Paris that were associated with the Drancy camp. These sites were primarily used as warehouses for personal property confiscated from Jews and included:

• the Austerlitz train station
• the Hotel Cahen d'Anvers
• the Lévitan furniture warehouse

Approximately 70,000 prisoners passed through Drancy between August 1941 and August 1944. Except for a small number of prisoners (mostly members of the French resistance), the overwhelming majority were Jews. Approximately one thousand prisoners managed to obtain release during the first year of the camp’s existence.

Deportations from Drancy

ID Card

Nadine Schatz (ID Card)

Nadine was the daughter of immigrant Jewish parents. Her Russian-born mother settled in France following the Russian Revolution of 1917. Nadine was born in Boulogne-Billancourt, a city on the outskirts of Paris known for its automobile factories. She was fluent in Russian and French.

1933-39: Nadine attended elementary school in Paris. Her mother, Ludmilla, taught piano, and her Russian grandmother, Rosalia, lived with them. After France declared war on Germany in September 1939, Nadine's mother moved the family to Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, a small village on the Brittany coast, hoping it would be safer. There, Nadine resumed her schooling.

1940-42: Victorious German troops reached Saint-Marc-sur-Mer in June 1940. After France surrendered to Germany, the Germans remained in Brittany. Nadine and her mother moved to the nearby city of Nantes. But local French officials frequently cooperated with the occupying Germans to help enforce anti-Jewish laws. In 1942 Nadine and her mother were arrested by French police. Nadine was separated from her mother and deported to the Drancy transit camp east of Paris.

Twelve-year-old Nadine was deported to Auschwitz on September 23, 1942. She was gassed shortly after arriving.

A transport left Drancy for Auschwitz on March 27, 1942. However, systematic deportations of Jews from Drancy to killing centers in German-occupied Poland did not begin until June 22, 1942, when 1,000 Jews were sent from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Altogether, between the first transport in March 1942 and the last, on July 31, 1944, approximately 64,000 Jews were deported from Drancy in 62 transports. The vast majority of these Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Germans also deported between 3,000 and 4,000 Jews from Drancy to the Sobibor killing center.

Some of the Jews deported from Drancy were French citizens. The majority were foreign-born Jews who had immigrated to France in the 1920s and 1930s, primarily from Poland, Germany, and, after 1938, Austria. Many distinguished French Jewish intellectuals and artists were held in Drancy, including the poet Max Jacob, the choreographer René Blum, and the playwright Tristan Bernard.

In mid-August 1944, as Allied forces neared, the German authorities in Drancy fled after burning many camp documents. Fifteen hundred prisoners remained in Drancy. Fewer than 2,000 of the approximately 64,000 Jews deported from the Drancy camp survived the Holocaust.