History Forum / General / General Topics / July 2009

Archive/File: camps/auschwitz drancy camps/drancy france.001 camps/gur france.001 people/b/barbie.klaus france.001
Last-Modified: 1993/10/28

After Hitler's rise to power, many German Jews left Germany for the safety
of France, and obtained citizenship there. After the fall of France, the
Nazis cancelled the French citizenship; Vichy complied with the order. From
that point, the Jews of France were at the mercy of the Nazis, and the
result was predictable:

"Detention camps for French Jews were quickly set up, the largest in
Drancy, near Paris. From there 98,000 people were deported to Auschwitz, of
whom only 3,000 lived to be liberated at the end of the war. These were
mainly saved because of insufficient transportation facilities. The sports
stadium, Velodrome d'Hiver, was pressed into service for a week to hold
9,000 Jews, including 4,000 children, before they were sent on to the gas
chambers of Auschwitz. Thirty adults, but no childreen, survived. Another
detention camp bore the odd name of Gur ... The cruelest actions were the
raiding of children's homes. The Gestapo commander at Lyon took pride in
cabling his superiors in Germany in April 1944: `Early this morning the
children's home at Aisier-Anne was emptied. A total number of 41 children,
aged 3-13 was siezed.' They all died at Auschwitz.<18> All told, about
80,000 French Jews perished there.*"(Sachar)

* Klaus Barbie, known as the "Butcher of Lyon", who escaped to Bolivia
after the war, was extradited to France in March 1983 to stand trial there.

                          Work Cited

Sachar, Abram L. The Redemption of the Unwanted. New York: St.
Martin's/Marek, 1983.