Drancy+Camp

Drancy Camp On our trip to France we will probably learn about the Drancy Camp but not see it. The Drancy Camp was located just north of Paris and known for holding French Jews and Jews who immigrated to France during World War II. The Drancy Camp was a former stadium and police barrack that could hold a lot of people. It was made into Drancy Camp in 1941 when the Nazis invaded France and needed a place to hold the Jews who lived in France.

The Drancy Camp could hold up to 5,000 prisoners. During World War II about 70,000 prisoner went in and out of Drancy Camps in between 1941 and 1944. Most of the Jews held there were shipped to concentration camps in Poland - approximately 61,000 to Auschwitz-Birkenau and 3,753 to Sobibor killing center. One-third of the Jews deported to these killing centers were French citizens. The rest were immigrant Jews from neighboring countries. On August 15 and 16, 1945, Allied forces burned down the Drancy Camp and all documentation about it. They also freed all remaining Jews, approximately 1,500 people.

The reason that we will not be seeing the Drancy Camp is because the Allies burned it down. The French were not proud of this part of history so they wanted it erased. They were embarrassed by the fact that French police guarded the camp until July, 1943 (much of the time it was being used) and that French citizens were being held there. As a result there isn’t anything there today to see. They were an important part to World War II which is why we need to learn about the camps.