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[inde…] scribable sadness felt by our churches
at the news of the decisions taken by the French government against foreign
Jews ... and the ways in which they have been carried out." His letter
declares: "The truth is that men and women who have found refuge in France for
political or religious reasons, many of whom know in advance the terrible fate
that awaits them, have just been delivered to Germany."
(Later it
becomes known that during the summer of 1942 many hundreds of Jews are given
refuge in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, a town in the Haute-Loire, under the
courageous protection offered by Pastor André Trocmé and a local
population with strong Protestant convictions. The number of Jewish refugees
protected in the area would grow into the thousands.)
August 23,
1942. In a pastoral letter read in most churches in his diocese,
Monseigneur Jules Saliège, the archbishop of Toulouse, accuses Vichy's
leaders of treating the Jews in a vile manner. He calls on Vichy to refuse to
carry out the measures wanted by the Germans. "France, chivalrous and generous,
I do not doubt you are not responsible for these errors," he declares.
Saliège's letter is considered to be the first public protest by a
French Catholic prelate against the persecution of the Jews.
August
25, 1942. The fourth children's convoy from the Loiret camps arrives at
Drancy. It carries 422 Jews from the Pithiviers camp, 84 of them children, and
365 from Beaune-la-Rolande, 199 of them children. In the Beaune camp there
remain only 99 prisoners, 39 of them children who are hospitalized.
August 26, 1942. The planned roundup of Jews in the Unoccupied
Zone begins in the early hours throughout the zone. Arrests are heavy, but they
fall short of the numbers sought. A summary of the arrests prepared August 28
by the National Police asserts that 52 percent of the Jews hunted have been
caught in the net. Bousquet informs the Gestapo chief in Vichy that 6,584 of
the 12,000 sought have been arrested and the raids will continue.
Some
of the results noted in the police report: in the Nice area, only 655 of the
2,800 Jews sought have been arrested, but in other regions results are more
positive – in the Limoges region, 916 out of 1,300; in the Marseilles
area, 706 of 1,170; in Lyons, 1,016 of 2,000; in Montpellier, 1,230 of 2,157;
in Clermont-Ferrand, 225 of 481; in Toulouse, 1,679 of 3,300. In the
Alpes-Maritimes, 610 are seized; in Indre-et-Loire, 475; and in the
Bouches-du-Rhone, 440.
In the Occupied Zone,
convoy 24 is dispatched to Auschwitz from
the Le Bourget Drancy station. It carries 1,002 Jews, 416 of them children
under 18 years of age. An eye witness reports that the convoy is assembled
"under frightful conditions." On German orders, "they have mixed the children
with old people, helpless cripples and sick people with fevers." On the
convoy's arrival at Auschwitz, 967 deportees, including all of the young and
old, are immediately gassed. Of the 27 men and 36 women selected for work, 24
men survived the war.
August 27, 1942. A convoy of 444 Jews
leaves Bordeaux for Drancy; half male, half female, it carries 57 children and
about 140 adults who are French citizens. Its passengers include Jews who were
interned in the Gironde Department and whose transfer to Drancy has been
requested by the German security police of Bordeaux.
Maurice Papon, the
secretary general of the Prefecture in Bordeaux and its official re
[…sponsible]
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FRENCH
CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST A memorial
Serge Klarsfeld
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