Transport 21, Train 901-16 from Drancy, Camp, France to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 19/08/1942

In addition to the Jews from the unoccupied zone, thousands of Jewish children who had been detained in the two Loiret camps, Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande, since their arrests during the Vel d’Hiv roundups of mid-July 1942 were deported in August 1942. Their parents had been deported earlier and the children had remained alone in the camps. At a meeting held on August 13 between Heinz Roethke, who had replaced Dannecker as head of the Jewish Affairs Department and his assistant Ernst Heinrichsohn and French representatives Jean Leguay, second in command at the French National Police, and his chief of staff Commander Thomas Sauts, it was made clear that under no circumstances should a transport be made up exclusively of children. In order to abide by this directive, Jews arriving from the unoccupied zone were to join the transport of children in a proportion of 300 adults for 500 children. Leguay promised to prepare for the arrival of enough Jews from the unoccupied zone to meet the quota. The transport of August 19, 1942, was made up of approximately 400 children who had been transferred from the Loiret camps to Drancy on August 15. In addition about 100 Jews who had already been detained in Drancy and who chose to leave with their children were included. The remainder of the deportees, some 600, had been transferred from the Milles and Vernet camps in the unoccupied zone a few days prior to the deportation. On August 8 directives were sent out to the Feldgendarmerie (German military police) concerning the upcoming transports from the Bourget–Drancy station, including the deportation of August 19, 1942, ordering that the departures take place at 8:55 and that a contingent of Feldgendarmerie guards with one officer and eight men be available....