At the elementary school Hospitaliers St. Gervais, 165 Jewish schoolchildren were arrested in July 1942 and sent to Auschwitz in August. None survived.
by Brooke Karanovich and Sean Begin
Seventy years ago, the Nazi regime’s crusade against the Jews tore apart Paris’ Le Marais neighborhood. In this small district located across both the Third and Fourth Arrondissements, thousands of Jews, including more than 11,000 children, were shipped to Drancy and similar deportation stations around Paris before being sent to Auschwitz and other death camps in Germany.
At the Ecole des Hospitalières-Saint-Gervais (Photo 1), 165 Jewish schoolchildren were arrested in July 1942 and sent to Auschwitz in August. None survived. Outside the school is a plaque (Photo 2) commemorating Joseph Migneret, the school’s Jewish director, who falsified papers and helped Jews escape after that first deportation.
In Le Marais, other memorials address this tragic period in French history, like the plaque (Photo 3) outside one of the doors of the Lycée Victor Hugo (Photo 4). The plaque commemorates the loss of 500 Jewish children that attended the high school and lived in the Third Arr. and acknowledges the collaboration of the French Vichy government in their deaths.
Despite the near-crippling effects of the deportations, Le Marais began to flourish once more in the 1980s and 1990s and is now renowned as one of the most beautiful and historic districts in Paris
Outside the school is a plaque commemorating Joseph Migneret, the school’s Jewish director, who falsified papers and helped Jews escape after that first deportation.
