Seemingly innocuous, the Pithiviers train station is completely different from all the other train stations in France, because it is sadly known for having served as a base for the deportation of Jews to the Nazi extermination camps. It was in the camp very close to this station and in the one in Beaune-la-Rolande, of which nothing remains today, that 16,000 Jews (including 4,500 children) were interned, after being arrested, notably during the so-called "green ticket" roundup and the Vél' d'Hiv roundup, in 1942. Very few survived. Until the spring of 1942, families were sometimes allowed to visit the internees, and these same places saw the arrival and departure of internees, families, their mail and packages for months. The height of the horror occurred in the summer of 1942 with the shift from a policy of racial exclusion to a policy of genocide. After the Vel d'Hiv roundup, more than 3,000 children would remain for nearly a month, alone in these camps, separated from their mothers deported in previous convoys. All these children would be sent to Drancy and most would end up deported and exterminated. In the summer of that same year, 8,100 people would be sent directly from the Loiret train stations to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. These places thus bore witness to the tragedy of history and the implacable genocidal system put in place by the Third Reich. Because here we are at the heart of the process and the mechanisms that allowed the accomplishment of the Shoah. This station also bears witness to the policy of collaboration with decisions taken by the Nazis and implemented by the French administration. Nowadays, no passenger trains arrive at Pithiviers station, and it has been transformed into a Holocaust Memorial. Free, the museum is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. A few hundred meters away, in the Max Jacob square, located at the intersection of rue de l’Ancien Camp and rue Jules Morin, there are also several commemorative plaques related to these events. Finally, to add a less somber note, it should be noted that the station sheds also house a transport museum exhibiting some old locomotives and vintage wagons, some of which are visible from the road.
Translated by Google •
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