French police round up Jews

14th June 1941: The 'rafle du billet vert ' - green card roundup - demonstrates that no part of civilised Europe is safe from the worst of the Nazis

Jews detained by the French police look out of the upper-floor windows of the Rue Japy Gymnasium on the morning of the 14th May.

The Holocaust unfolded in many ways. For millions of Jews confined in the Polish ghettos, deprivation, starvation and disease were just the opening moves of the SS. The Dutch had already discovered that protest was useless, even fatal. For the few thousand Jews who had managed to make their way to France before the occupation of 1940, the refuge of a liberal democracy under the rule of law proved illusory. French bureaucracy proved capable of adapting to the demands of the Nazi occupiers.

On the 10th May 1941, a summons was issued to 6,400 Jews of foreign nationality living in Paris. Most were Polish or Czechoslovak nationals, and all were already registered with the police. So it was a simple matter to send them a green card asking them to attend a centre pour examen de sa situation - so their “situation could be examined”. It appeared to be a routine immigration procedure. Serious consequences were threatened if they did not attend - s’exposerait aux sanctions les plus séveres.

The green card sent by the French Police to Pinkus Eizenberg, summoning him to the 2 Rue Japy Gymnasium for 7 am on the 14th May. According to the USHMM database, Pinkus Eizenberg, a Polish national, attempted to enter Switzerland on 10th November 1942, so he either didn’t comply with the order or escaped at some point.

Around half the men summoned decided it was best to comply with the law - 3,430 Polish, 157 Czech and 123 stateless Jewish men. The ‘stateless Jews’ had been naturalised under French law before the war, and most had French wives and families. Their status as French had been revoked by the German occupiers.

They soon discovered that it was not a simple check on their paperwork. They were immediately detained, and the people accompanying them were given a card asking them to bring clothing and enough food for 24 hours.

“Please bring with you 2 blankets, 1 bed sheet, 1 change of clothing, cutlery, plate, toiletry bag, food card and enough food for 24 hours”

Wives and girlfriends brought the required items back to the police registration centre. What was unfolding had not been expected.

Wives and families gather outside the centre. Most of the men had been established in France for some time.

For some, there was a chance to say ‘au revoir’. For most, this would prove to be a final goodbye.

The police then escorted the men onto buses….

… and then onto trains that would take them to the detention centres.

There was a further registration process at the detention centres, administered by the French police.

For most conditions inside the camps would prove to be a rude shock, where they were engaged in forced labour. But under the French regime, there was the opportunity for some to escape.

The process was photographed by a member of a Wehrmacht Propaganda Company. The contact sheets were discovered in 2010 and have since been acquired by the Mémorial de la Shoah, where the whole sequence can be viewed.

The two detention camps were transferred to German control in May 1942. Then, in June 1942, the men were transferred by railway cattle wagons to Auschwitz, where they were murdered, some immediately, some by forced labour.

For the time being, it was only the pain of separation. The mass roundup of Jewish women and children - or those deemed to be Jewish under Nazi racial laws - would not begin in France until 1942.