'Drancy' internment camp.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drancy_internment_camp

The Drancy concentration camp.

Memorial to French Jews who
were imprisoned in the
Drancy concentration camps.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

• Dranchy was a concentration camp in Paris where Jews were held and later deported to extermination camps.
• 65,000 Jews were deported from Dranchy of whom 63,000 were murdered including 6,000 children. Only 2,000 remained alive when Allied forces liberated the camp on 17 August 1944.
  
• Drancy was under the control of the French police until 1943 when administration was taken over by SS and officer Alois Brunner.
  
• In 2001, Brunner's case was brought before a French court by Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, which sentenced Brunner in absentia to a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
  
• The Dranchy concentration camp was formed due to the collaboration of Pétain and the Germans.
  
• Poetically named La Cité de la Muette ("The Silent City") at its creation for its perceived peaceful ideals, the name became twisted with bitter ironic meaning.
  
• It was used first as police barracks, then converted into the primary detention center in the Paris region for holding Jews and other people labeled as "undesirable" before deportation.
  
• On 20 August 1941, French police conducted raids throughout the 11th District of Paris and arrested more than 4,000 Jews.
  
• Drancy was under the control of the French police until 3 July 1943 when Germany took direct control of the Drancy camp.
  
• The French police carried out additional roundups of Jews throughout the war.
  
• The Drancy camp was designed to hold 700 people, but at its peak held more than 7,000.
  
  
  Dranchy today:
• A sculpture was created to commemorate the French Jews imprisoned in the camp.
• On 20 January 2005, arsonists set fire to some railroad freight cars in the former camp; a tract signed "Bin Laden" with an inverted swastika was found on the place.
• On 11 April 2009, a swastika was painted on the train car used for the deportation of Jews, a permanent exhibit. This action was condemned by the French Minister for the Interior, Michèle Alliot-Marie.