Convoy 71

by | 19 Sep 2018 | Government

Marceline Loridan-Ivens, née Rozenberg, died yesterday in Paris. She was 90 years old. She was to my knowledge the last survivor of convoy 71, which left on April 13, 1944 from Bobigny station to Auschwitz.

There were about 79 convoys of deportation of Jews from France over three years, especially from the Drancy camp, via the Bourget and Bobigny stations.

1500 people in that one, including 289 children. Among the deportees, 34 children aged 5 to 13 arrested at the house of Izieu on April 6, 1944, all gassed on arrival, as well as the adults supervising them, including Miron Zlatin and Sarah Levan-Reifman, respectively director and doctor of the establishment. The convoy also included 19 children (7 to 19 years) from a less known “rafle”, that of la Martellière, in Voiron, on the night of March 22 to 23, 1944.

On arrival at Auschwitz, 165 men and 91 women were selected for forced labor, avoiding immediate shipment to the gas chambers. In 1945, 105 had survived, including 70 women.

Lea Felblum, one of Izieu’s supervisors, Simone Veil, her sister Madeleine Jacob, but also the genial psychoanalyst Anne-Lise Stern were among these survivors. Simone Veil’s mother did not return.

And Marceline … an amazing character to be honest.

Well … let’s end up with something less dark, and because life must prevail, by remembering her in “Chronique d’un été”, a film by Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin. A lovely film that left the Parisians express themselves on the relationship with oneself, with work and with others, offering a gentle immersion in their daily lives.


Iconography: postcard of the Bobigny station, from which the convoys left in 1943 and 1944. The station was dedicated “place of memory” following its registration as historical monuments in 2005.