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Vichy France: Summary of Operations Concerning Handing Jews Over to Germans

(1941-42)

ATIONS CONCERNING THE HANDING OVER OF JEWS TO THE GERMAN AUTHORITIES

Department of Police
of French Territory and of Foreign Nationals

SUMMARY OF OPERATIONS CONCERNING THE HANDING OVER OF THE JEWS TO THE GERMAN AUTHORITIES

I -

During August 6-15, 3,456 individuals interned in the camps of the Department were handed over to the German Authorities.

II -

On August 13, our Delegation in Paris announced that a convoy bound for Galicia would leave the occupied zone on August 28, and the Department was asked to prepare at Drancy enough people to fill this convoy.

As it was impossible, for practical reasons, to round up the free Jews prior to the 26th, a [different] convoy was immediately organized. Its constitution was as follows:

18 labor detachments.
[Internees] from the camps of Gurs, Noe and Recebedou.

The rapid organization of this convoy, consisting of individuals from many localities of the unoccupied zone, was very precarious.

Notwithstanding, on the 24th, this convoy was able to cross the demarcation line without incident. It was made up of 1,150 individuals.

III -

Of the 15,000 individuals included in the census, 5,000 were rounded up on the 26th (according to the information received until 6.00 p.m.).

Enclosed is a table indicating the forecasts made and the number of individuals rounded up. To these are added 600 persons who were already rounded up in the camps.

We must send to Drancy 15,000 persons to replace the 15 convoys that will depart for the East between September 26 and 30.

Including the 1,150 handed over on August 24th, we have the numbers required to fill the trains that will leave from Drancy from now until September 29, inclusive.

The Police Chiefs must be asked to step up their police operations in order to find in due time some of those persons who have disappeared.

To this end, the following steps are required:

Intensification of the Technical Control Services in the surveillance of correspondence, telephone calls and telegrams of the U.G.I.F. (Union Generale des Israelites de France), of the rabbis, of important Jewish personalities, of any Jew not subject to the round-up measures, and of the owners of houses where those who have disappeared had lived.

Surveillance of the buildings of the interested parties.

Collecting information on the interested parties from the hotel-keepers.

Surveillance of the approaches made to the U.G.I.F. buildings.

Each regional Police Chief will be asked to transmit to his colleagues the list of missing Jews in his region, asking them to search for these Jews.

Furthermore, the police forces currently available to the Police Chiefs should be left at their disposal for several weeks, except for those participating in guarding the camps that are to be dissolved …

 


Sources: Yad Vashem. AIU, CC-26