Transport 58 from Drancy, Camp, France to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 31/07/1943

Beginning in the Spring of 1943, the Germans conducted most of the arrests of Jews in France without local assistance. The transports that followed included those who, following the requests of the Vichy regime, had previously been protected from deportation: former POWs, foreign volunteers for the French army, and employees of the UGIF (Union générale des Israélites de France, General Union of French Jews). As part of a series of arrests conducted in the south of France in late April, Germans conducted inspections on trains, and arrested anyone carrying papers with the imprint "Jew". After the deportation to the East of over 8,000 Jews in eight transports that departed during the months February and March 1943, deportation was halted for three months. During that period, less than 2,000 Jews were brought to Drancy, mostly from Paris, its environs, and from provincial towns throughout France. A possible reason for this hiatus was that the heads of the Sipo-SD, particularly Heinz Roethke, were preparing for the arrest and concentration of thousands of Jews in Drancy, which were supposed to take place immediately after the Vichy regime passed an act that would strip French citizenship from all Jews who had arrived in France after August 10, 1927; in the end, this bill was not enacted. In order to expedite the arrests and deportations, a team headed by Alois Brunner arrived in Paris. In the months prior to his arrival, Brunner was tasked with the deportation of 43,000 Jews from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He arrived in Drancy on June 18, and began interrogating about 1,500 inmates for three days. He also imposed harsher rules. Several days later, on July 2, the administration of the Drancy camp was handed over to the Germans, and French gendarmerie only kept watch over the external perimeter....