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In December
1941, the military commander Otto Stuelpnagel took advantage of the
attempted killing of a German officer in Paris to escalate
anti-Jewish activities in France. He sought permission to shoot 100
hostages, impose a mammoth fine on the Jews of France, and deport
1,000 Jews to the East. Hitler approved these measures, and on
December 12 Jews were arrested in Paris and interned in a camp in
Compiegne. Serious transport difficulties delayed the deportation
for some time. The deportation of Jews from France to Auschwitz was
the first such action in Western Europe, and Eichmann approached the
matter cautiously. He wished to increase the number of deportees to
10,000 and obtained authorization to do so from the German Foreign
Office, which operated in close coordination with the government of
France. The first train, carrying 1,012 Jews, did not leave on March
23 as planned, but on March 27. The Jewish population was horrified;
thousands of panic-stricken Jews sought hideouts from the Nazis and
the French police in any possible location. Eichmann, inspired by
the success of this transport, began to plan mass deportations from
the West. |
