GENEALOGICAL RESEARCHES ON JEWS DEPORTED FROM FRANCE

Genealogical researches.concerning Jews deported from France (not only French Jews but also the foreign refugees who were arrested in France and deported) are not easy since some families have been entirely exterminated. Nevertheless some sources are available to retrieve their memory and facilitate research.

The present page is condensed from the French version, where more details are given.

The French law of May 15, 1985

After 1945, when it appeared that many deportees had "disappeared", their families obtained official acts equivalent to a death certificate. In the beginning, it was decided that the "death place" would be the last internment camp where the future deportee was detained (Drancy, Pithiviers...) and that the "death date" would be the date of departure of the convoy.

This was obviously a strong distortion of history so that on May 15, 1985, forty years after the end of WW2, a French law was promulgated to correct this nonsense.

According to this law, the death records of all people deported from France should be modified and carry the mention "dead in deportation". When nothing is known concerning the actual fate of the deportee, the death is presumed to have occurred 5 days after the departure of the convoy.

Note that this concerns all deportees, Jews or non-jews. An important source exists therefore, it is the French Journal Officiel where are published, since 1986, the decrees which contain the lists of people officially declared “dead in deportation”.

At the present day (March 2010), i.e. 25 years after this law was promulgated, these rectifications of the death acts are not completed.

From the figures given on the Website of the "Fundation for the Memory of the Deportation" (not to be confused with the Fundation for the Memory of the Shoah), one finds:
85,000 people deported as an effect of the nazi repression : resistants, political opponents, hostages or victims of reprisals (figures known in 1999). Among these, 40 % did not come back, i.e. about 34,000 persons.
76,000 people deported (including 11,000 children) as an effect of the antisemitic persecutions. Among these, 97 % did not come back, i.e. about 74,000 persons.
115.500
The total number of persons who did not come back from deportation is thus about 108,000. (115.500 according to the last official numbers given by the French Ministry)

The ministerial orders ("arrêtés") published in the Journal Officiel give the official nominative lists of the persons "dead in deportation". On August 8, 2003, the total number of names in these arrêtés was only 48,000 and not much was done since. Therefore almost 60,000 people are scandalously missing, including almost all children. Moreover, many mistakes can be found in these lists.

Where can these lists be found ? In the Journal Officiel and in two Websites.

The Journal Officiel

The death acts rectified according to the above mentioned law are published as nominative lists in the Journal Officiel. The corresponding Website is given by this link.

There is also another (non-official) website, operated on a voluntary basis, with the same information and more, in English : click here

The Website of Patrick Cheylan

Following a work iniated by Daniel Carouge, Patrick CHEYLAN made a database with the same basic informations but classified according to the birth countries :
http://www.mortsdanslescamps.com/index.html

At present (march 2010), this site give the death certificate of 56.810 deportees (both Jewish and non-Jewish)

The French Shoah Mémorial (ex-CDJC)

An interesting database concerning the Jew deported from France has been made available since January 2005 by "le Mémorial de la Shoah", new name of CDJC : http://www.memorialdelashoah.org or directly on Click here

This database contains essentially all information gathered by Beate et Serge Klarsfeld in their book "Mémorial de la Déportation des Juifs de France" (Paris 1978). it is important to note that in its present state, this database online contains a great deal of errors. Many of these errors have been corrected in the database of the Memorial's library (accessible only on the spot). Unfortunately many of these errors subsist online and on the Memorial Wall: spelling errors, date errors and above all absence of the names of certain deportees (arrested under a false name). There are also the names of some people who for various reasons were not deported.

Books

Le Mémorial de la déportation des Juifs de France (édited and published by Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, Paris 1978)

Everybody knows this book in which Serge Klarsfeld collected copies of all original lists drawn up by the Drancy administration before the departure of each convoy. These lists mention the surnames and given names of the deportees as well as their birth dates and birth places.

Serge Klarsfeld has promised to publish a new edition of this book, correcting many mistakes and omissions, giving the addresses of the deportees. This new edition would also mention the victimes who died in camps in France or were shot. This new edition would also provide the married women's maiden names.

This new edition is beginning to appear:

The first four volumes of this new edition have been published since the end of 2006. The first one is a thick volume 21 x 29,7 x 3,5 cm, 600 pages, ca.1.700 kg.
Present price: 30 euros. It is published by the FFDJF, Paris, in common with the "Beate Klarsfeld Foundation". To see the cover page, click here

This new edition will comprise 8 volumes, i.e. 80 000 names :
Volume 1 : "Families from the roundup of the Vél d'Hiv", namely the convoys # 4, 5, 6, 13 - 16, 21 - 25.
This volume, as the following ones, is made of two parts with the same information : first the lists in alphabetical order (members of the same family being together) and the second part separately for each convoy.

In this new edition Serge Klarsfeld gives for each deportee : convoy number, surname, given name, maiden name (for wives), age, birth date and place, address (street, street number, city), internment camp.

The lists are preceded by a long explanation concerning the roundup of the Vel d'Hiv, since parents were separated from their children, members of the same family were dispersed and deported by different convoys and often with different spelling of their surname. S. Klarsfeld did his best to reunify these families in his list..
Volume 2 : lists of convoys 1, 2, 3, 7 à 12, i.e. the roundups of Summer 1942 in the "Occupied Zone".
Volume 3 : lists of convoys 17, 18, 19, 26 à 33, i.e. the roundups of Summer 1942 in the "Free Zone".
Volume 4 : lists of convoys 34 - 45, i.e. the roundups of Autumn 1942 in the "Occupied Zone".
Volume 5 : the 17 convoys of 1943
Volume 6 : the 15 convoys of 1944
Volume 7 : list of the people who died in Franc, in the camps and those who were shot ; list of survivors (between 2 500 and 3 000).
Volume 8 : general alphabetical of volumes 1-7 (80 000 names)

The volume already published are available from S. Klarsfeld and from the "Mémorial de la Shoah".

Le Livre-Mémorial des déportés de France arrêtés par mesure de répression et dans certains cas par mesure de persécution 1940-1945 edited by FMD (Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Déportation)

The "Fundation for the memory of the Deportation (F.M.D.) http://www.fmd.asso.fr/ (not to be confused with the Fundation for the memory of the Shoah http://www.fondationshoah.org/), published in 2004 this "Memorial-book of the persons deported from France because of repression and in some cases because of persecution."

This work is totally independent from Klarsfeld's book. It has 1500 pages. An alphabetical index allows one to retrieve easily the name of a deportee and the convoy number and eventually the fate of the deportee, whether he came back or not, where and when he died.....
This book does not contain the lists of Jewish deportation contained in Klarsfeld's book.

Nevertheless, many Jews are found in this book if they were arrested as resistants, without the Germans knowing they were Jews.

Yad Vashem : the Pages of Testimony (Daf Ed in Hebrew)

Yad Vashem is an institution created by the State of Israel in 1953. Since 1955, it gathers pages of testimony in Israel and all over the world to save from oblivion the memory of the Jews who did not survive.

The Pages of Testimony are sent to Yad Vashem by parents or friends of the missing people. They contain biographical details on the victims. Thirty thousand new Pages of Testimony are collected each year. About three millions have been collected since 1955.

The whole of these Pages of Testimony can be consulted on line on Yad Vashem's site. Several entries are available for a research: surname, given name, birth date and birth place, place of residence during the war.One can enter the site of Yad Vashem http://names.yadvashem.org/ or directly on the research page

Informations given in these Pages of Testimony are very interesting and also, quite often, those concerning the person who send the testimony, with his/her address.

Useful addresses :

Yad Vashem :
P.O.B. 3477, Jérusalem, Israël 91034
Tel. : (0 )2 675 16 11
Fax : (0) 2 643 35 11
Website : http://www.yadvashem.org/
E-mail : info@yad-vashem.org.il

Comité Français pour Yad Vashem
64, Avenue Marceau
75008 Paris
Tel/Fax : 01 47 20 99 57
Website : http://www.yadvashem-France.org/
E-mail : general.information@yadvashem.org

Mémorial de la Shoah (new name of CDJC)
17, rue Geoffroy-l'Asnier
75004 Paris
Tel : 01 42 77 44 72
Fax : 01 53 01 17 44
Website: http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/
E-mail: contact@memorialdelashoah.org

Fondation pour la mémoire de la Shoah
52, boulevard Malesherbes
75008 PARIS
Tel. 01 53 42 63 10
Fax. 01 53 42 63 11
Website : http://www.fondationshoah.org

Fondation pour la mémoire de la déportation
Hôtel National des Invalides
71, rue Saint-Dominique
75007 PARIS
Tel. 01 47 05 31 88
Fax. 01 44 42 35 62
Website : http://www.fmd.asso.fr
E-mail : contactfmd@fmd.asso.fr

Convoi 73 du 15 mai 1944
Website : http://www.convoi73.org
E-mail : webmaster@convoi73.org

About the deportation of Jews from Lorraine

Our member Françoise JOB has just published a new edition of her book "La déportation des Juifs de Lorraine, Le Camp d'Internement d'Ecrouves", Ecrouves is a small village near Toul , which was the equivalent of Drancy for Lorraine. More than 4000 people were interned there within three years.
The camp was created by the Vichy government to gather opponents such as communists, gaullists and Resistance fighters but later the Germans took the camp in charge and used it to gather arrested Jews before they were sent "for an unknown destination.... ".
The book is published by the "Fils and Filles des Déportés Juifs de France" and is prefaced by Serge Klarsfeld. Details
On the front page of the book, a picture shows a group of 25 Jews interned at Ecrouves. Only two of them have been identified up to now. The author urgently asks anybody who can identify other members of the group to inform her. See the picture

The memorial of Bas-Rhin

(added 1/21/2012)

Daniel Fuchs, one of the two authors of the "Memorial of the Deportation of Bas-Rhin", that the CGJ has in his library, has posted his work with the cooperation of friendly and competent team of the Judaïsme Alsacien site.

People killed during the two World Wars

Two interesting websites (in French) give lists of people killed during the two world wars or deported. One is edited by the Ministry of Defense and deals with WW1 and the Algerian war. click here. The other one is non-official, click here and aims at gathering data on all people killed during all the wars in which France was involved ( WW1 and WW2, 1870-71 war, Algerian war..). Are concerned soldiers, civilians and deported people as well.

The Camp of NATZWILLER-STRUTHOF

We have several times be asked informations concerning the Camp of Natzwiller-Struthof, unique extermination camp situated in France, about 50 km from Strasbourg.

The CRDP of Reims présents a very good presentation of this camp (in French):

http://www.crdp-reims.fr/memoire/enseigner/Natzweiler_Struthof/01site.htm

On the other hand, Jewishgen has just put on line

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Natzweiler/nat001.html

a document (in English) extracted from the book "Die Namen der Nummern" (The names of numbers), written by a German newspaperman, Hans-Joachim Lang, who spent several years to identify 86 victims of experiments which were found in this camp (where thousands of deportees died) at the end of WW2, from the number tattooed on their arm and who wrote their individual histories. The list of these 86 victims is found on this site. They are mainly of Greek origin but a few came from other countries, including a Frenchman. The site of Jewishgen gives a link to the site of the book "Die Namen der Nummern" where are given the biographies of the 86 victims (in German) : http://www.Die-Namen-der-Nummern.de/

The text published by JewishGen contains a few mistakes, which will soon be corrected. The remains of these victims were first buried in October 1945 in the Municipal Cemetery of Strasbourg Robertsau and transferred in September 1951 in the Jewish Cemetery of Strasbourg-Cronenbourg. Two plates have been officially inaugurated in November 2005, giving the names of these 86 victims, one at Strasbourg-Cronenbourg, the other one on the external wall of the Anatomy Institute of the University Hospital of Strasbourg.

Moreover, the Great-Rabbi Abraham Deutsch was not present in November 2005 since he died in 1992.

The Convoy #50 from Drancy to Maïdanek

Our member Ernest Kallmann obtained and exploited unpublished documents concerning the preparation of the reprisal convoy #50 that left Drancy on March 4, 1943 towards Maidanek. These documents, once analyzed with the help of other members, bring new information on what happened to foreign Jews in France during the war. It appears that out of the 920 people involved, the fate of 73 people, still alive at that time, is unknown.

The result of this study is available on the site « Un exil ordinaire » devoted to the French internment camps (1939-1945) at the address Click here.