discovered who had arrived in 1944 regular third-class cars rather than
boxcars. After a few weeks, the arrivees were consigned to the same fate as
other Jews. |
Convoy 79, August 17,
While Paris was getting ready for the Liberation,
Brunner, in his antisemitic rage, did not let up. For the retreat he obtained
three cars from an aircraft battery by exchanging some pigs for them. Brunner
took with him 51 Jews; many were Resistance fighters and hostages he chose
himself because of their reputation or because he hated them particularly. Such
was Armand Kohn, head of the Rothschild Hospital, and members of his family.
Two of his children 18-year-old Rose Marie and an older son
escaped. The youngest, Georges-André, suffered a terrible death (pages
886 and 887).
May 3, and Convoy of July 21-23, 1944 (Drancy)
were made up of wives and children of prisoners of war, categories that had
offered some protection until May 1944. The destination was the Bergen-Belsen
camp, in Germany. There were 79 children under 18 among the deportees. The
great majority survived, because their conditions, as hostages, were better
than at Auschwitz.
Convoy 81, July
30, 1944 (Toulouse)
There had to have been about 160 Jews
deported on this convoy, which followed an irregular route to Auschwitz. At
least 26 were under 18, 11 boys and 15 girls.
Convoy 82, August 22, 1944 (Clermont-Ferrand)
Little is known about this small convoy that arrived at Auschwitz on
September 8, and from which 39 men were selected for work. There were three
adolescents, all girls.
[grouping] 84 (Deportations through Belgium)
northernmost departments, the Nord and Pas-de-Calais, were under the authority
of the Germany Military Command for Belgium and the North of France. Thus, the
Jews arrested here were transferred to Malines, the Belgian equivalent of
Drancy, and deported from there to Auschwitz.
Convoy X of September 15,
1942 the tenth deportation convoy from Belgium had taken 554 of
these Jews of France to Auschwitz, of which more than 160 were under 18. Of
them, 122 had been born in France, including 26 in Lille, 34 in Lens, and 8 in
Roubaix, towns on or near the Belgian border. More than 60 children from France
were deported in the other convoys from Belgium. The total was at least 226
children, 151 boys and 75 girls.
Convoy [grouping] 86 (Children who died in camps in
France or who were shot)
At least 85 children are known to have died in
internment camps in France. Detailed local research is still needed to refine
this information further. To our knowledge, 31 young boys were shot.