In the Paris suburb of Drancy you will find a large U-shaped apartment complex enclosing a public park. There is little here to suggest that this was once the most notorious Nazi concentration camp in France. From 1941 to 1944 this building served as the main transit camp for French prisoners of the German S. S. Over 67,000 people, most of them Jews, were deported from Drancy to the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor; very few of them survived the war. A further 3,000 perished at Drancy from abuse, starvation, or disease. The last Auschwitz-bound transport left the camp on July 31, 1944, and the site was liberated 18 days later. The former existence of Nazi concentration camps in France remains a volatile subject and it was not until 1995 that they were officially acknowledged by the French government. Today there is a memorial and a small museum at Drancy.
In the Paris suburb of Drancy you will find a large U-shaped apartment complex enclosing a public park. There is little here to suggest that this was once the most notorious Nazi concentration camp in France. From 1941 to 1944 this building served as the main transit camp for French prisoners of the German S. S. Over 67,000 people, most of them Jews, were deported from Drancy to the death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor; very few of them survived the war. A further 3,000 perished at Drancy from abuse, starvation, or disease. The last Auschwitz-bound transport left the camp on July 31, 1944, and the site was liberated 18 days later. The former existence of Nazi concentration camps in France remains a volatile subject and it was not until 1995 that they were officially acknowledged by the French government. Today there is a memorial and a small museum at Drancy.
Bio by: Bobb Edwards
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