August 20, 1941: Raid of Paris

Photo: The arrival of the first internees in the camp of Drancy on 08/20/1941

Credits: Mémorial de la Shoah/coll. Bundesarchiv

After the so-called "billet vert" raid conducted on 14 May 1941, which led to the internment of more than 3,700 Jews in the camps of Loiret, a second operation took place on 20 August 1941. At the instigation of the Jewish affairs department of the Gestapo (Sipo SD), the Paris municipal police, controlled by the German military, proceeded to arrest 4232 Jews of various nationalities, all men aged 18 to 50, including about 1500 French citizens. 40 lawyers of the Paris bar are also among the Jews expressly targeted by this first major raid.

This operation is carried out by the Paris municipal police without the French government having been consulted or informed. The arrests take place on public roads and in homes, first in the 11th arrondissement which is closed off at 5:30 in the morning by 2400 police officers, grads and police inspectors. Then they are extended until August 25 and extended to the other Parisian districts

The pretext evoked by the Nazis to justify this roundup is to fight against the actions carried out by the communists following the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany on June 22, 1941, communists called «Bolshevik judeo» by Nazi propaganda.

Photo: The arrival of the first internees in the camp of Drancy on 08/20/1941
Credits: Mémorial de la Shoah/coll. Bundesarchiv

Those who are arrested at home have the right to take a blanket of clothes and food for one day. They are gathered at various regrouping points such as the Japy gymnasium in the 11th arrondissement then transported to the Drancy camp by the TCRP. The first internees arrive at 7:30 in the morning at the Drancy camp opened in haste. Between 70 and 80,000 Jews were interned at the Drancy camp between 1941 and 1944. From 1942, the Drancy camp will become a transit and deportation camp for 63,000 internees who will be mainly deported and murdered in the Auschwitz camp. Placed under the authority of a Nazi commander, the camp is under the responsibility of the Prefect of Paris who has under his orders the gendarmerie for guarding the camp and the supply services of the prefecture of the Seine.