Innocuous in appearance, Pithiviers station is totally different from all other stations in France, because it is infamous for having served as a base for the deportation of Jews to Nazi extermination camps. It was in the camp very close to this station and in that of 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 "greenback" roundup and the Vél' d'Hiv roundup in 1942. Very few survived.
Until the spring of 1942, families were sometimes authorized to visit internees, and these same places saw internees, families, their mail and packages arrive or leave in transit for months. The paroxysm of horror occurred during the summer of 1942 with the shift from a policy of racial exclusion to a policy of genocide. After the Vél d'Hiv roundup, more than 3,000 children will remain for almost a month, alone in these camps, separated from their mothers deported in previous convoys. All these children will be sent to Drancy and most will end up deported and exterminated. In the summer of that same year, there were 8,100 people sent directly from Loiret stations to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp.
These places have thus been witnesses 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 workings which made it possible to carry out the Shoah. This station also testifies to the policy of collaboration with decisions taken by the Nazis and implemented by the French administration.
Now, no passenger trains arrive at Pithiviers station, and it has been transformed into a Shoah Memorial. Free, the museum is open Saturdays and Sundays from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
A few hundred meters away, in Square Max Jacob, located at the intersection of rue de l'Ancien Camp and rue Jules Morin, there are also several commemorative plaques linked to these events.
Finally, to bring a less somber note, it should be noted that the station hangars also house a transport museum exhibiting some old locomotives and vintage wagons, some of which are visible from the road.
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