The 'final solution' in occupied France: massive deportations from Le Bourget, 1942-1943
The first hostage convoys of the spring of 1942
Confronted with the actions of the Resistance, the German military command in occupied France set up a "hostage policy" which retaliated by deporting Jews and Communists. The Jewish Affairs Office of the Gestapo in early 1942 takes advantage of this policy by arresting thousands of Jews, launching "the final solution of the Jewish question" already in preparation in Berlin after the Wannsee conference of January 20,1942. The first massive convoy of French Jews departs from the hostage camp in Compiègne on March 27, 1942. The second leaves the same camp on June 5.
When in early June 1942 the Nazi police were given the "policing and security" order in occupied France, its Jewish Affairs Office separated from the framework of this hostage policy. The deportations already planned leave however, but directly from the camps where the Jews have been gathered: from Drancy on June 22, from Pithiviers on the 25th and from Rolande on the 28th.
The massive departures from Le Bourget station, summer 1942 - summer 1943
The meeting of June 11, 1942, held in Berlin around Adolf Eichmann, initiates the systematic deportation of all western European Jews. The deportation of 40,000 Jews from France was programmed. Drancy became the staging and separation camp of the deported Jews of France. To have a sufficient number of people to deport, the so-called grand roundup of the Vel 'd'Hiv' (Winter Velodrome) was organized in Paris on July 16 and 17, 1942. More than 37 000 Jews were deported from Le Bourget station from mid-July to early November 1942.
After this important crackdown, the convoys only resume in February 1943, but at a slower pace due to transport difficulties. This was also to avoid riling the Vichy authorities, still opposed to the systematic arrests of French Jews. Italy also opposed the arrest of Jews in the zone it controlled in the southeast of France.
