Transport 40, Train Da 901/35 from Drancy, Camp, France to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 04/11/1942

The German authorities in France now looked for ways to intensify the arrests of foreign Jews residing in France. On October 6, Knochen informed the Sipo-SD posts that on October 9–10, Jews holding non-French citizenships would be arrested. These included Belgian, Dutch, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Yugoslavian Jews, as well as Jews of undefined nationality and others who were formerly citizens of Germany, Danzig, or the Saarland. The arrests were to include men, women, and children, and there were to be no age limits. Each detainee was to bring two blankets, two pairs of shoes, and a small amount of food and a few toiletries. The regional Sipo-SD stations forwarded the arrest orders to the prefects of the regions in the occupied zone. The Jews were arrested in their homes and sent to the assembly point. The prefect of the Poitiers region was instructed to concentrate the Jews in two locations: the transit camp named “the camp of Limoges road” near the city of Poitiers and in the city of Angouleme, where the Jews were detained in schools, warehouses, and barns. The arrests were carried out on the night of October 8. The French authorities in the area were instructed to increase security along the demarcation line, and several Jews were arrested near the line, as a French police officer attested after the war: “Indeed, these unfortunate Jews, sometimes entire families, were arrested while crossing the demarcation line, usually during the day [.…] They crossed country roads, fields, and swamps with children and suitcases […] and the Feldgendarmerie would hand over to us these poor people, trembling and scared, often with crying children, so we would keep them in custody for the night, because the next morning they would send them to Angouleme, and from there, so we were told, to a camp for Jews.”...