Transport 34 from Drancy, Camp, France to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 18/09/1942

On September 8, 1942, Jean Leguay, Bousquet’s bureau chief, met with Heinz Röthke, Dannecker’s successor as head of the Jewish Affairs Department at the French Sipo-SD , and confirmed that 7,000 arrests had been made in the “free zone.” Thus, he added, the French authorities could guarantee enough Jews to meet the transport quotas only until September 14; afterwards, the number of Jews available for deportation would not suffice. In response, Röthke said that the original plan—seven transports departing on September 15–30—would proceed in any case; if necessary, additional arrests would be made and the 4,000 Jews interned in camps in the occupied zone would be deported as well. To meet this quota, Röthke advised his superiors on September 12 that 3,000 additional Jews would have to be found. On September 16, 1942, Ernst Heinrichsohn, Röthke’s deputy, phoned Jean François, Director of the General Police at the Paris Prefecture and told him to prepare for the transport that would depart on September 18. François replied that he had only 588 Jews on hand “who meet the criteria.” Heinrichsohn instructed him to make up the difference with French Jews. After receiving this directive, François passed it on to Leguay, who reported that there were 876 French Jews in Drancy, of whom 350 could be sent out on the September 18 transport. Responding to D. Falk’s request to release her grandson, who had been interned in Drancy with his mother and his two sisters, François replied in one word: “Impossible.” On the evening before the transport from Drancy, Charles Baron heard his name called out among those of others. As was true of all the deportees, his head was shaved and he was taken to the building where the Jews waiting to be deported were being held. The next morning, the deportees were forced onto waiting buses, and when they reached the Le Bourget–Drancy train station, the French police turned them over to the Germans....