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Map Shows Every French Child Deported During the Holocaust

Interactive online map traces all child deportations to concentration camps

by
Hannah Dreyfus
February 20, 2014
(tetrade.huma-num.fr)
(tetrade.huma-num.fr)

Of the 76,000 Jews deported from France and sent to Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust, 11,400 of them were children. Now, France is trying to trace those small footprints.

A new online interactive map shows the origin of every child deported from France between July 1942 and August 1944. The map was created by French historian Jean-Luc Pinol, and uses data collected by former Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld.

This new resource is intended to help bring the Holocaust to life for French students and citizens alike. “It [the deportations] took place where people lived, where they still live,” Klarsfield told Le Monde.

Red circles on the map vary in size, indicating the number of children deported from that location. The circles densely sprinkle the map, eerily calling to mind drops of blood. Users can zoom in to see the exact city and town from which each child was taken. One can also enter an address into the map, and the map will show the locations of deportees arrested nearby, along with their names and ages.

The map is currently on display outside the “Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers,” located in Paris’s 3rd arrondissement—the very place from which, as the map indicates, 577 Jewish children were deported to concentration camps. A virtual exhibition has also been made available for free online.

Hannah Dreyfus is an editorial intern at Tablet.