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JewishHistoryעברית

Drancy internment camp

Date
August 1941 – August 1944
Location
Drancy internment camp, northeastern suburb of ParisFrance
Then part of
German-occupied France
Perpetrators
  • German Security Police (State)
  • French police (State)
  • SS (State)
Killed (estimate)
62,000 – 65,000[1]Jews deported from Drancy who were murdered. USHMM states that approximately 64,000 Jews were deported from Drancy in 62 transports between March 1942 and 31 July 1944, and that fewer than 2,000 of them survived. Yad Vashem states that approximately 65,000 Jews were deported on 64 transports from June 1942 to July 1944, and that over 95 percent of the deportees were murdered. Most transports went to Auschwitz-Birkenau; USHMM gives 3,000–4,000 sent to Sobibor, Yad Vashem about 3,300 on three transports.
Country

18% – 26% of the Jewish population of German-occupied France (c. 1940)[49]

Worldwide

0.37% – 0.39% of the worldwide Jewish population (c. 1939)[4]

Expelled (estimate)
No reliable estimate
Category
Persecution, Expulsion, Genocide
Confidence
DisputedUSHMM gives approximately 64,000 Jews deported from Drancy in 62 transports, with fewer than 2,000 survivors. Yad Vashem gives approximately 65,000 deported on 64 transports, and states that over 95 percent were murdered. Both give about 70,000 prisoners passing through the camp. France-wide Yad Vashem figures of some 76,000 deported from France, of whom some 2,500 survived, are not identical to the Drancy-only counts.

Summary

In August 1941 the Germans established an internment camp at Drancy, a northeastern suburb of Paris, after the arrest of more than 4,200 Jewish men in the city. From summer 1942 it was the main transit camp for deportations of Jews from France. French police staffed the camp under German Security Police and SD control until July 1943, when the Germans took direct command under SS officer Alois Brunner. USHMM and Yad Vashem both state that about 70,000 prisoners passed through; the overwhelming majority were Jews. Systematic deportations to killing centers began on 22 June 1942. The last transport left on 31 July 1944. The Germans burned camp records and abandoned Drancy around 16 August; Yad Vashem states that Allied forces liberated the remaining 1,500 prisoners on 17 August 1944.

Sources

  1. Drancy. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  2. December 3, 1942, Jews in the Drancy detention camp in France. Yad Vashem
  3. The Deportation of the Jews from France. Yad Vashem

Jewish population (estimates)

  • Worldwide: 16,500,000 – 16,633,675[4]c. 1939DellaPergola's revised core estimate for 1 January 1939 is 16.5 million. The American Jewish Year Book 1948–49 compiled 16,633,675 at the end of 1939.
  • German-occupied France: 250,000 – 350,000[49]c. 1940USHMM France: approximately 350,000 Jews in France when the Third Republic collapsed in 1940 (less than half French citizens; many refugees). USHMM Losses: 300,000–330,000 in 1937. USHMM 1933 table: 250,000. Covers metropolitan France under occupation/Vichy partition; no peacetime French Third Republic polity slug exists in polities.yaml.

Sources for population estimates

  1. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2025)
  2. Sergio DellaPergola, Notes toward a Demographic History of the Jews. Genealogy 8(1) (2024)
  3. Jewish Population of Europe in 1933. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  4. Jewish Population of the World. American Jewish Year Book 1948–1949, via Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1949)
  5. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Voluntary Conversions and Diaspora: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish History. American Economic Association annual meeting paper (2007)
  6. Jews in the USSR (1926–1959). Demographic Changes. JewishGen Belarus SIG (table compiled from the 1939 All-Union census)
  7. Mandate for Palestine. Report of the Mandatory to the League of Nations (Palestine Administration, 1922). United Nations UNISPAL (British mandatory report) (1922)
  8. José Hinojosa Montalvo, La sociedad y la economía de los judíos en Castilla y la Corona de Aragón durante la Baja Edad Media. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie III, Historia Medieval (1993)
  9. The Contagion of Violence. 1391 and the Jews of the Spanish Kingdoms. Palgrave / Springer chapter (preview) (2021)
  10. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Religious Norms, Human Capital, and Money Lending in Jewish European History. Handbook chapter PDF via zvi-eckstein.com
  11. Sergio DellaPergola, Some Fundamentals of Jewish Demographic History. Berman Jewish Policy Archive (PDF) (2001)
  12. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, THE CHOSEN FEW: HOW EDUCATION SHAPED JEWISH HISTORY, 70–1492 (book summary). Bar-Ilan University Economics seminar PDF (Princeton University Press forthcoming summary)
  13. Joseph Jacobs, Statistics. Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
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  19. Игорь Виленский, Оценка сокращения численности еврейского населения Российской Империи и СССР (1897–1926). Еврейская Старина (2024)
  20. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2024. American Jewish Year Book 2024, via Berman Jewish DataBank / Israel CBS host (2025)
  21. Sergio DellaPergola, Demographic Trends in Israel and Palestine: Prospects and Policy Implications. American Jewish Year Book 2003, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2003)
  22. Population of Israel/Palestine by Religion (1553–Present). Jewish Virtual Library (citing CBS, British Mandate publications, Bachi and others)
  23. US Jewish Population Pocket Demographics 2.0. Berman Jewish DataBank / Jewish Federations of North America (2018)
  24. H. S. Linfield, The Jews of the United States: Preliminary Figures for 1937 (Linfield) / Statistics of Jews. American Jewish Year Book 1939–40, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1939)
  25. Changes in the Jewish Population of the United States, 1949–1950. American Jewish Year Book 1951, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1951)
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  28. German Jewish Refugees, 1933–1939. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  29. Robin R. Mundill, The Jews under Edward I (PhD thesis). University of St Andrews
  30. Stéphane Mechoulan, The Expulsion of the Jews from France in 1306: a modern fiscal analysis. University of Toronto Department of Economics working paper (2004)
  31. Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein, Appendix A: Sources and Methodology for Section 2 (Jewish and total population in Germany-Austria and Poland-Lithuania). Authors' appendix PDF (citing Weinryb, Stampfer, Kupovetsky, Guggenheim, Toch, Battenberg, Israel) (2018)
  32. Kirsten E. Schulze, The Jews of Lebanon between Coexistence and Conflict. Internet Archive full text
  33. Jews in Arab Countries. American Jewish Year Book excerpt, Berman Jewish Policy Archive (1978)
  34. Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, The Farhud. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  35. Joseph Rothschild (tabulated), Interwar East European Census Data. Lawrence University course materials
  36. Mark Tolts, Population since World War I. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
  37. Davis Trietsch, Die Juden der Türkei. Länder und Völker der Türkei, Heft 8 (Leipzig) (1915)
  38. Statistics of Jews (World Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1940–1941, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1940)
  39. Jewish Losses during the Holocaust: By Country. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  40. Andrzej Żbikowski, Extermination of Polish Jews. The genesis and course of Operation Reinhard. Żydowski Instytut Historyczny (Jewish Historical Institute)
  41. Yitzhak Arad, “Operation Reinhard” | Death Camps of Belzec, Sobibor & Treblinka. Yad Vashem
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  43. Bulgaria. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
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  46. France. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  47. Belgium. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  48. Norway. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  49. Denmark. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  50. Greece. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  51. Lithuania. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  52. German Jews during the Holocaust, 1939–1945. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia
  53. Statistics of Jews (World and US Jewish Population). American Jewish Year Book 1946–1947, via Berman Jewish DataBank (1947)
  54. Jacqueline Shields, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries. Jewish Virtual Library
  55. Lebanon Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  56. Jewish Populations in the Arab World. Jewish Virtual Library (citing Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2021 / AJYB 2023)
  57. Algeria (Vital Statistics). Jewish Encyclopedia (1906)
  58. Archives juives n°45/2 — Les Juifs d'Algérie. Archives Juives / Les Belles Lettres (2012)
  59. EHRI Country Report — Tunisia. European Holocaust Research Infrastructure
  60. Leon Shapiro, World Jewish Population. American Jewish Year Book 1981 (estimates for 1979), via Berman Jewish DataBank (1981)
  61. Sergio DellaPergola, World Jewish Population, 2020. American Jewish Year Book 2020, via Berman Jewish DataBank (2022)
  62. Sara Koplik, The Demise of the Jewish Community in Afghanistan, 1933–1952. SOAS University of London (PhD thesis abstract / deposit page) (2001)
  63. Argentina Virtual Jewish History Tour. Jewish Virtual Library
  64. All-Union 1959 census — ethnic composition of the USSR. Demoscope Weekly (РГАЭ РФ fond 1562)
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