84: 1st Convoy

84 years ago today (March 27, 1942) the First Convoy left France for the Auschwitz Death Camp in German-Occupied Poland.

1,112 French Men were on the First Transport in 1942.

Only 19 of them were still alive in 1945 to return to France.

Onr of the People on the First Convoy were:

Simon Gutman, an 18 year old Jewish Man originally from Warsaw, Poland lived in France for most of his life. He was arrested in the Roundup of August 20, 1941, transferred to the Drancy Internment Camp and deported on the First French Convoy to Auschwitz. Where he received the Number 27815.

He worked as a Kitchen Assistant and then in Kanada (the area where Prisoners’’ belongings were organized before being sent to Germany. He contacted Typhus and was selected for the Gas Chamber, but was forgotten in Block 7 as he was in a comatose state. After getting better he was transferred to the Stutthof Concentration Camp in October 1944.

He escaped a Death March in February 1945 and was liberated by the 2nd Armored Division of the French Army on April 5, 1945, On his return to France, Simon Gutman was reunited only with his Father, David Gutman. His Mother, his three Brothers: Mordka Gutman, Szrul Gutman, Isaac Gutman, and his three Sisters, Chana Gutman, Bella Gutman and Yvette Gutman were all murdered

He married in 1947 in Paris to a Polish Survivor with whom he had two Children. He founded a prosperous ready-to-wear Company on Rue de Turenne in Paris,

He died on October 5, 2020 at the age of 97.  He was the last Survivor of the First Convoy.

The Germans and their French Collaborators took Men first so it would be “easier” to later take the Women and Children instead of whole Families.

At first the Germans only wanted to deport Men and Women, but not the Children. The French Vichy Collaborators insisted that the Children also be deported to the Death Camps so they (the Vichy Government) wouldn’t have to look after them.

Background: The Germans Occupied part of Metropolitan France - including Paris -  from 1940-1942 and then all of Metropolitan France from 1942-1944.

The Vichy French Collaborators with Germany governed the Unoccupied part of Metropolitan France as well as French North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), French Africa (Ivory Coast, Benin, Mali, Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo, Chad, Central African Republic, Gabon, Cameroon, Madagascar, Djibouti, Mayotte, Reunion, Comoros), French India (Pondicherry, Mahe, Yanaon), French Middle East (Syria and Lebanon), the French Caribbean Islands (St. Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Barthelemy), French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia), French Guinea in South America and French Oceania (French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Wallis and Futuna) and the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon off of Canada from 1940-1942.

In 1942 the Vichy French Territories in North America, South America, Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean were taken over by the Allies and the Free French. The French Territories in Asia were occupied by the Japanese until their defeat in 1945 and the Germans occupied all of Metropolitan France in 1942 until their defeat in 1944.

Victims: Of the 340,000 French Jews living in Metropolitan France in 1940 -  75,000 of them were deported to the German Death Camps where 72,500 of them were murdered.

3,000 French Jews died in Internment Camps inside France.

75% of French Jews survived the Holocaust because of the French Non-Jewish Resistance Groups, the French-Jewish Resistance Groups, French-Arab Resistance Groups or by escaping to neutral Andorra, Spain and Switzerland.

There were 400,000 French Jews living in French-Morocco, French-Algeria and French-Tunisia in 1940 – those places being considered part of Metropolitan France until the 1960s.

 Sultan Mohammed V of French-Morocco refused to hand over the Jews in his Territory to either the Vichy French or the Germans so while Moroccan Jews were legally discriminated against they were not sent to the Death Camps and the vast majority survived the war.

 The Jews in French-Algeria and French-Tunisia were sent to Forced Labor Camps where many survived.

French Jews in Japanese Captivity were treated as other White People (not because of their Religion) and sent to Internment and Concentration Camps where many died from torture and malnutrition.

The Deportations in France were carried out by every level of French Society (both in the German-Occupied parts and the Vichy-French parts.) 90% of the Guards rounding-up the French Jews were French Policeman with only a handful of Germans supervising (as seen in this picture of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in Paris in July 1942.)

France only fully admitted to their role in the Holocaust in 2017.

After the War, the new French Government created the épuration légale (French for 'legal purge') to bring those who had supported the Vichy Collaborators to justice.

From 1944-1949 6,763 people were sentenced to death (3,910 in absentia) for treason and other offenses. Only 791 executions were carried out.

49,723 People were found guilty and given a dégradation nationale ('National Degradation') – a loss of Citizenship Privileges (Loss of the right to vote, Exclusion from elected office and public or semi-public positions, Dishonorable discharge from the military and loss of all decorations, Exclusion from management positions in businesses, banks, the press, and broadcasting, Exclusion from all positions in trade unions, professional organizations, the judiciary, education, journalism, and the Institut de France and the Loss of the right to keep and bear arms.)

This could last anywhere from 5 years to a person’s whole life depending on their crimes.

High Level Cases:

Philippe Pétain (the Head of the Vichy Government) was sentenced to death for treason, but was later given a Life Sentence (with people like Britain’s Queen Mary, US President Truman and Spain’s Franco trying to get him released.) By 1949 he no longer had his mental faculties and he died in 1951 at 95 years old.

Pierre Laval (the Prime Minister of the Vichy Government) was sentenced to death for treason. His sentence was carried out in October 1945.

 Louis Darquier de Pellepoix (the Commissioner General for Jewish Questions of the Vichy Government) was sentenced to death for his role in the Holocaust, but he fled to Spain where Franco protected him. He died in Spain in 1980.