Transport 62 from Drancy, Camp, France to Auschwitz Birkenau, Extermination Camp, Poland on 20/11/1943

The 62nd transport departed from the Paris-Bobigny railway station on November 20, 1943. Most of the 1,200 deportees were of French nationality, 40% were even born in France. One of these was Robert Blum, born in Belfort, head of the camp administration bureau in Drancy. Jacques Helbronner, born in Paris, was another deportee on this transport. He was President of the Israelite Central Consistory of France, a former Councillor of State, and a great friend of Philippe Pétain. The transport followed the usual deportation route indicated by the Reichsbahn (German National Railway) to the Gestapo as of November 1943: Paris-Bobigny, Noisy-le-Sec, Epernay, Châlons-sur-Marne, Revigny, Bar-le-Duc, Novéant-sur-Moselle, Metz, Saarbrücken, Homburg, Kaiserslautern, Mannheim, Frankfurt am Main, Fulda, Burghaun, Erfurt, Apolda, Weißenfels, Engelsdorf Mitte (Leipzig), Wurzen, Dresden, Görlitz, Kohlfurt, Arnsdorf,(Miłkowice), Liegnitz (Legnica), Königszelt (Jaworzyna Śląska), Kamenz, Niederschlesien (Kamieniec Ząbkowicki), Neisse (Nysa), Cosel, Heydebreck, Katowice (Kattowitz), Mysłowice (Myslowitz), Auschwitz. The train was handled by SNCF engineers and conductors until the new Franco-German border in Novéant-sur-Moselle, which had been renamed Neuburg an der Mosel after Hitler annexed Alsace-Lorraine. In Neuburg, they were replaced by German railway workers from the Reichsbahn. The next stop was Metz, located in the territory annexed by the Germans. The train then ran through Hesse and Saxony, along the southern border between Germany and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to Görlitz, an entry point into the former province of Silesia. The transport continued to the railway hub in Kohlfurt (since 1945 renamed Węgliniec) to Liegnitz (Legnica), the capital of Lower Silesia and from there further south via Schweidnitz (Swidnica) and Kandrzin (Kędzierzyn), renamed Heydebreck, into the south-eastern end of the Reich until it reached occupied Polish Silesia in Katowice (Kattowitz) which served as the capital of the newly created East Upper Silesia. Auschwitz-Birkenau, just 40 km south of Katowice was part of it and, as Katowice, annexed to the Reich....