Before I go into the main story, I’d like you to look at the photograph above. Drancy Transit Camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews for deportation to extermination camps during the World War II German occupation of France. However, as you can see, there is only one uniformed person in the photo—a French police officer. It is a point I have made many times before, and I will make it again. Without the help of people in the occupied countries, the Nazis would not have been able to carry out the murders on such a large scale/ Many of the non-Germans were happy to participate in the murder and persecution of Jews, Roma, LGBT, disabled, etc.
On March 27, 1944, a transport left Drancy with the end destination Auschwitz Birkenau—the route of that transport.
Before reaching Auschwitz-Birkenau, the train passed eight or so stations. I don’t know if the train stopped at any of them. However, I presume it may have stopped at some of the stations. Rarely mentioned—every time that train stopped, the people inside had thoughts of fear or joy. Fear for the unknown, the uncertainty of what was about to happen. Joy because they may have thought they would get off the train, and perhaps the ordeal may be over. The psychological terror of that journey, and all the other journeys, is often forgotten.
There were two rail companies involved with Transport 70. Unsurprisingly, the German Reich railways, Deutsche Reichbahn. The other is the SNCF. The French National Railway Company, SNCF, Société Nationale des chemins de fer français. SNCF was formed in 1938, following the nationalization of France’s five main railway companies.
The French state-owned trains and state-paid rail workers were responsible for carrying approximately 76,000 Jews from France to Germany and the East during World War II. Only a handful returned.
According to the list prepared in the Drancy Transit Camp before the departure, there were 1,000 Jews on Transport 70. A copy of the list was sent to the Union of French Jews (Union générale des israélites de France [UGIF]), recovered by the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Centre (Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine [CDJC]) after the war, and edited by Serge Klarsfeld in his 1978 work, Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France. However, Klarsfeld’s Le Calendrier de la persécution des Juifs de France records a total of 1,025 deportees (609 men and 416 women). Klarsfeld also notes that the Jews deported on this transport were arrested during roundups in the Paris region—the Isère, the Savoie, the Lyon region, Vichy, Toulouse, Marseille, and Côte d’Azur.
I won’t be able to go into the 1025 stories, but I will use Daniel Tytelman to commemorate all murders.
There is some confusion about Daniel’s age. Yad Vashem has two birth years, 1928 and 1930, but looking at that picture of him, he doesn’t look 14. After research, I found a document that puts his birthdate as April 11, 1928. nearly 40 years before I was born, just off by one day.
Daniel was murdered when he was still 15. There are also two versions of the way he was murdered. He was transported on March 27 from Drancy to Auschwitz. He died, according to one version, shot while trying to escape while the train was slowing down at Bar-le-Duc. According to another, he was gassed upon his arrival on April 1.
Only 15% of all those deported that day survived the Holocaust.
Sources
https://www.deportesdelyon.fr/les-archives-par-famille-n-z/enfants-tytelman
https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/deportations/5092642
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11751246
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