Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp

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Beaune-la-Rolande
Transit camp
Beaunelarolande.jpg
Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp, 1941
Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp is located in France
Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp
Location of Beaune-la-Rolande within France
Coordinates48°04′14″N 2°25′48″E / 48.0706°N 2.4300°E / 48.0706; 2.4300Coordinates: 48°04′14″N 2°25′48″E / 48.0706°N 2.4300°E / 48.0706; 2.4300
LocationBeaune-la-Rolande, Loiret
German-occupied France
Operated by
Commandant
  • Commandant de Taddey
  • Commandant Lombart[1]
Original usePOW camp
Operational14 May 1941 – 12 July 1943[2]
InmatesFrench, Polish, Czechoslovak, Austrian and German Jews
Number of inmates6.800[a]
Killed6.400 deported to Auschwitz
Notable inmatesRené Blum, Zber, Ralph Erwin, Adélaïde Hautval, Denise Kandel

Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp was an internment and transit camp[b] for Jews (men, women, and children), operated by the French Police under Nazi supervision, located in Beaune-la-Rolande, north of the Demarcation line of occupied France during World War II.

Prior to becoming an internment centre, Beaune-la-Rolande was used to detain French prisoners of war, the first Jewish prisoners, most of them Polish, arrived on 14 May 1941 after the green ticket roundup. The camp consisted of 14 barracks, surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers and guarded by French gendarmes, the detainees were forced to work both inside and outside the camp. It was a Type 1 camp meaning that all the inmates were there by decision of the German occupying authorities. When the deportations began in 1942, the Nazis temporarily took over operations from the French,[4] the camp was closed on 4 August 1943.

Together with Pithiviers and Jargeau, Beaune-la-Rolande was one of three internment camps established in the Loiret. During its existence 6,800 foreign and French-born Jews, including 1,500 children, passed through the camp, most of them were eventually deported and murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.[5]

History[]

The Beaune-la-Rolande camp was initially built in 1939 to receive refugees of the Spanish Civil War but was converted after the Fall of France into a German camp for French POWs. Like the Pithiviers camp, it was then used in 1939 and 1940 by German officials to intern French political prisoners.[4]

In 1941 the camp became an internment centre for Parisian Jews. The camp was administered by the prefectural office of the Loiret but frequently inspected by representatives of the German occupying authorities.[6] Inmates were housed across 19 barracks and guarded by Vichy officials acting under Nazi supervision.[7] At the end of 1941, these consisted of four officers, 80 gendârmes, 43 customs officers and 22 auxiliary guards, totaling 120 men.[8] The first prisoners to arrive in May 1941 were foreign and stateless Jews, victims of the Green ticket roundup. Mostly Polish men from the Paris area, the prisoners performed forced labour within the camp at its workshops and garden, and outside it at farms and plants in the surrounding villages. It was closely associated with the Pithiviers camp, located 18 kilometres (11 miles) away.[5] Between 20 July and 23 August 1941, 313 of its 2,000 prisoners managed to escape custody, usually from worksites outside the camp.[9]

In May 1942, SS-Hauptsturmführer Theodor Dannecker ordered German authorities across France to take over operations from the French as deportations began. A thousand Parisian Jews, mostly women and children, were transferred to Beaune-la-Rolande on 20 July 1942, following the Vel d’Hiv roundup. [9] As August 1942 began, 1,500 children remained in Beaune-la-Rolande (as well as in Pithiviers[10]) after their parents were deported to Auschwitz. On 19, 22 and 25 August the children were sent to Drancy before being deported to Auschwitz where they were murdered immediately upon arrival.[11]

In September 1942 the camp reverted to French control and became an internment facility for non-Jewish communist prisoners.[5]

The camp was closed on 4 August 1943 by S.S. Sturmbannführer Alois Brunner, then commander of Drancy concentration camp, and his deputy Ernst Brückler, under direct orders from Heinrich Himmler.[12]

Deportations[]

Further information: Timeline of deportations of French Jews to death camps

Two convoys left Beaune-la-Rolande for Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1942.[13]

  • Convoy 5 of 28 June 1942 (1,038 deportees) 1.034 men and 34 women[14]
  • Convoy 15 of 5 August 1942 (1,014 deportees) 425 men and 589 women[15]

Notable Beaune-la-Rolande incarcerees[]

Commemoration[]

"May this stone bear witness to the suffering of men"

In 1965, a stele was constructed at the site in memory of the Jewish internees, on 14 may 1989, a larger monument in black marble with a list of victims and a gold star of David etched out on its summit was added.[19] On the stele, is inscribed the following phrase:[20]

Que cette pierre témoigne de la souffrance des hommes
May this stone bear witness to the suffering of men

In 1994, a commemorative plaque was affixed to the facade of the old train station by the Association des Fils et des Filles des déportés juifs de France (Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees of France).[21]

In 2008, the remains of Barracks no.4, one of the buildings where prisoner slept, were dismantled and reassembled in Orléans, in the courtyard of the Musée-Mémorial des enfants du Vel 'd'Hiv’.[21]

In popular culture[]

See also[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ between 14 May 1941 and 12 July 1943[2]
  2. ^ Camps where prisoners were briefly detained prior to deportation to other Nazi camps.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ Rutkowski 1982, p. 162.
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b Rutkowski 1982, p. 167.
  3. ^ Megargee & White 2018, p. XXV.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Walter, Laqueur & Baumel-Schwartz 2001, p. 92.
  5. ^ Jump up to: a b c Megargee & White 2018, p. 111.
  6. ^ Rutkowski 1982, p. 21.
  7. ^ Solly 2018.
  8. ^ Rutkowski 1982, p. 19.
  9. ^ Jump up to: a b Denis Peschanski 2002, p. 514.
  10. ^ Denis Peschanski 2002, p. 30.
  11. ^ Poznanski, Bracher & United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2001, pp. 264-265.
  12. ^ Wieviorka 2000, p. 31.
  13. ^ Rutkowski 1982, p. 154.
  14. ^ Rutkowski 1982, p. 157.
  15. ^ Rutkowski 1982, p. 156.
  16. ^ Chazin-Bennahum 2011, p. 219.
  17. ^ Cullin et al. 2008, p. 273.
  18. ^ Novodorsqui-Deniau & Hazan 2006, p. 97.
  19. ^ Jump up to: a b de Rosnay 2007, p. 145.
  20. ^ Ville de Beaune-la-Rolande 2019.
  21. ^ Jump up to: a b France Bleu 2021.
  22. ^ Tartaglione 2009.
  23. ^ FilmsDocumentaires.com.
  24. ^ Wajsbrot 2003.
  25. ^ Weismann & Kutner 2017.

Sources[]

Bibliography[]

  • Chazin-Bennahum, J. (2011). Rene Blum and The Ballets Russes: In Search of a Lost Life. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-983047-3.
  • Cullin, M.; Gruber, P.; Gruber, P.D.; Orpheus Trust (Vienna, Austria) (2008). Douce France: Musik-Exil in Frankreich 1933-1945 - Musiciens en exil en France 1933-1945. Böhlau. ISBN 978-3-205-77773-1.
  • de Rosnay, T. (2007). Sarah's Key. St. Martin's Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4299-8521-5.
  • Denis Peschanski (2002). La France des camps: l'internement, 1938-1946 (in French). Gallimard. ISBN 978-2-07-073138-1.
  • Megargee, G.P.; White, J. (2018). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945, Volume III: Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-02386-5.
  • Novodorsqui-Deniau, M.; Hazan, K. (2006). Pithiviers-Auschwitz, 17 juillet 1942, 6H 15: convoi 6, camp de Pithiviers et Beaune-la-Rolande (in French). Cercil. ISBN 978-2-9507561-6-9.
  • Poznanski, R.; Bracher, N.; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2001). Jews in France During World War II. Tauber Institute for the Study of European Jewry series. Brandeis University Press. ISBN 978-1-58465-144-4.
  • Wajsbrot, C. (2003). Beaune-la-Rolande. Zulma. ISBN 978-2-84304-266-9.
  • Walter, B.J.T.L.; Laqueur, W.; Baumel-Schwartz, J.T. (2001). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-13811-5.
  • Weismann, J.; Kutner, R. (2017). After the Roundup: Escape and Survival in Hitler's France. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-02704-7.
  • Wieviorka, A. (2000). Les biens des internés des camps de Drancy, Pithiviers et Beaune-la-Rolande. Ouvrages de la Mission d'étude sur la spoliation des juifs de France (in French). Documentation française. ISBN 978-2-11-004548-5.

Websites[]


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