Transport 37 from Drancy, Camp, France to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 25/09/1942

On September 8, 1942, Jean Leguay, Second in Command at the French National Police in the occupied zone, met with Heinz Roethke, 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, Roethke said that the original plan — seven transports departing 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. Beginning from September 4, 1942, the Rivesaltes camp in the south of France fulfilled a function as similar to Drancy in the occupied zone: all the Jews who were arrested in the south or who were incarcerated in other camps were sent to Rivesaltes before being sent to Drancy and eventually to Auschwitz. In preparation for the 14th transport set to leave the unoccupied zone, the French police notified the prefects of the regions of Toulouse and Montpellier on September 17 that a train with 70 Jews would depart from Rivesaltes on September 21. At the Toulouse railway station, the train would be joined with two other transports: one from the La Vernet camp with 90 Jews, and another one from the Brens camp with 30 Jews. The train from Toulouse would be joined by a cattle car and a passenger car, which would be used for sick children and women, and which might also take on sick Jews from Brens and La Vernet. The addressees of these directives were instructed to contact the head of police in Toulouse so that a transport commander would be appointed and to report on any incident that might occur when arranging the transport....