The history of the convoy 6
Convoys to
the Loiret Camps
On 16 and 17 July 1942, 8,160 people (1,129 men, 2,916 women and 4,115 children, almost all of whom were French) were arrested by the French police, at the request of the SS, and crammed into the Vel’ d’Hiv’ in Paris for several days in inhuman conditions.
Convoy No. 6 left on 17 July 1942 at 6.15 a.m., the second day of the great round-up of 16 and 17 July 1942. It deported 928 Jews, adults and children. Only 99 people returned. It has the particularity of being the first to have transported so many women and children.
In these wagons were crammed men, women and children, most of whom were summoned by the “Billet Vert” in May 1941 and interned in the Loiret at Pithiviers and Beaune la Rolande. Their only offence… being Jews.
The convoy takes three days and two nights to reach its destination. When it arrived in Auschwitz on 19 July 1942 around 7pm, many people died, asphyxiated, landed or executed. July 1943, the camp closes and the last occupants, 464 Jews, are transferred to Drancy.
Today, the traces that remain are testimonies of the few survivors of this convoy. Many of them are transcribed in books. The testimonies are poignant; almost all of the people are separated from their families…
Key dates
Vel'd'Hiv raid
Start of the deportation from the Vel'd'Hiv camp
Closure of the Loiret camps
The association
The purpose of the Association is to bring together people whose family members or friends were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau by convoy No. 6 of 17 July 1942 from the Pithiviers camp in the Loiret.
In order to gather as many people as possible concerned by this convoy, advertisements were placed in the newspapers of the AFMA, the Amicale d’Auschwitz, the Journal de Drancy, the Bulletin des Enfants Cachés and the Bulletin des FFDJF. Claude Bochurberg also made us the friendship of placing ads in his Radio Shalom programme. We also had to extend our research beyond France: in Israel, Australia (Melbourne and Sydney), the United States, the Holocaust Center and England. Following the 3rd meeting where we were more than 80, the creation of an Association seemed necessary to us. Our first General Assembly was therefore held on 30 June 2002.