Commemorative plaques have been installed at several stations to recall the role played by the rail network in the arrests and transfers of Jews from the unoccupied zone. They pay tribute in particular to the victims of the policy of persecution and deportation carried out by the Vichy government from 1942 onwards, and help to preserve the memory of these departures, sometimes from small stations that have since been profoundly transformed.
These plaques serve as markers of memory within the French rail network. They help us better understand the geography of the persecution and recall that arrests, transfers and departures for deportation were not confined to the major Parisian stations or the main internment camps.
In the unoccupied zone, many stations were thus transit and departure points. They ground the persecution of the Jews within everyday regions and infrastructure.
During the summer of 1942, the Vichy government handed over to the German authorities nearly 10,000 foreign Jews previously interned in camps in the unoccupied zone. Transferred to Drancy, they were then deported to the Nazi killing centres. These operations, carried out with the participation of the French authorities, are a major episode in the persecution policy and collaboration of the French State.
Chalon-sur-Saône and Vierzon: inscribing the departure sites in memory
In November 2012, a first plaque was unveiled at Chalon-sur-Saône station, in the presence of Serge Klarsfeld, chairman of the Fils et Filles des Déportés Juifs de France (FFDJF) association. It recalls the memory of the Jews arrested by the Vichy government’s forces in the unoccupied zone and deported from Chalon-sur-Saône in seven convoys.
A second plaque was also installed at Vierzon station, in the Cher département, another strategic point on the rail network located near the former demarcation line. These two sites recall the role of railway infrastructure in the journeys imposed on persecuted people: from arrest to internment, then transfer to Drancy and, for many of them, to the killing centres.
Saint-Priest: the memory of a round-up
On the forecourt of Saint-Priest station, in the Rhône département, another commemorative plaque was unveiled in August 2014.
It recalls a particularly striking episode of the persecution carried out in the unoccupied zone. On 26 August 1942, 1,016 foreign Jews were arrested simultaneously in ten départements. After their arrest and assembly, 545 of them left Saint-Priest station on 29 August 1942, in a convoy bound for the Drancy camp.
From Drancy, those interned were progressively deported to the Nazi killing centres, mainly Auschwitz-Birkenau. Through their presence in stations and on their forecourts, these plaques thus bring out a memorial geography of the persecution. They recall, at the very heart of places of everyday passage and life, the paths of those whose fate was sealed here.