The introduction of the FRENCH STATE on July 10, 1940 was going to open a new period in the history of the French internment camps whose administration was going from now on to pass under the control of National Safety.

Initially, and in accordance with article 19 of the Convention of Armistice, the authorities of occupation will require that be delivered to them "all German and Austrian emigrants whom Reich will claim". Much of them was Jews.

Then, to answer the German pressure, the French State will lend itself obligingly to the implementation of a series of measurements tending to exclude the Jews.

A latent anti-semitism will be fed and amplified by a campaign aiming at making of the Jew the scapegoat of all misfortunes which had just melted on the Country.

A propaganda in this direction will maintain this policy and will disturb the spirits.

II is as necessary to recall as in September 1939, 300 000 Jews were in France, including 120 000 foreigners and stateless people. In September 1940, they will be 350 000 including 40 000 from Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland and 6 500 coming from Bade and from Palatinat and deported in southern zone by the Nazis.

As of September 1939, the French police force had arrested 15 000 national "enemies" who will be interned in the camps of LES MILES (Bouches-du-Rhone), then GURS (Basses-Pyrénées), of LE VERNET (Ariège) and ST-CYPRIEN (Pyrénées-Orientales).

In May 1940, the arrests will begin again. On 40000 civil internees in the south of France, there was 70% of Jews.

The first anti-semites measurements will appear in August 1940 and will be followed in September by German Ordinances carrying statute of the Jews in occupied zone and defining the Jew.

October 18, 1940, Vichy promulgates in its turn a law establishing the statute of the Jews and opening the operations of census.

All kinds of prohibitions and controls will follow, in particular with regard to the setting under sequestration of the Jewish companies, the prohibition of certain economic activities, the circulation of capital and the control of their goods. Racial certificates will be required in many cases.

March 29, 1941 was created in PARIS a GENERAL COMMISSION FOR THE JEWISH QUESTIONS depending on the MINISTRY of the INTERIOR and was placed under the responsibility of Xavier VALLAT (1891-1972), member of Parliament at extreme right-hand side and notorious anti-semite under IIIrd République. It will be replaced by Louis DARQUIER DE PELLEPOIX (1897-1980) in May 1942.

Will come then creation, October 19, 1941, of a POLICE FORCE TO the JEWISH QUESTIONS which will be devoted to a pitiless hunting for the Jews and the foreigners, also resting about very many denunciations.

From the very start of 1941, SS-Obersturmfuhrer Théo DANNECKER (1913-1945), chief of the Service for the Jewish Businesses in the GESTAPO in France, had wished to create a "Judenrat" representative of the Jewish community, but the resistance of certain associations leads ultimately to creation, November 29, 1941, of the U.G.I.F. (General Union of the Jews of France) charged to bring a help to the internees and to their families.

A 2 franks bond for the sending of parcel to the internees and prisoners.

From this time, the policy of exclusion of the Jews carried out by the French State will conform to the will of the Germans to pass to a logic of deportation and extermination. It is the implementation of the "Final Solution".

The raid of "Vél' d' Hiv" of July the 16, and 17 1942 in PARIS, during which 12 884 Jews will be arrested, will not be the only one and much of others will follow as well in the capital as in province.

Thus, in January 1943, a raid organized in ROUEN and in the department of Seine-Inférieure in reprisals to the attack having cost the life Sonderfuhrer STAEDLER, of Feldkommandantur 517 (ROUEN) cut down at the door of the Hotel De Dieppe on January 2, will particularly touch women, children and old people.

In ROUEN, 137 Jews of which 24 children apprehended in the night from the 15 to January 16 are transported to DRANCY. The convoys of the following days will carry them to AUSCHWITZ from where the majority will not return.

This great raid followed little that of mid-October 1942, during which 85 Jews, as a majority native of Rouen, were arrested. In ROUEN like everywhere else, the French Police force had made the dirty work and apprehended 24 Jews. The Prefect of Seine-Inférieure, with the satisfaction of the achieved duty, then wrote his reporto of November 1, 1942 in these terms:

"On order of the German services, 24 foreign Jews with their children were arrested and led to the camp of Drancy to be deported to the east. This measure which will cleanse the political atmosphere is approved by the healthy mediums ".

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According to Serge KLARSFELD, 75 721 Jews will be deported. Less than 2 000 will return. The 11 000 children deported between March 23, 1942 and August 22 1 944 will die.

Such appears the disaster assessment of a policy with which the French were closely associated!