BEAUNE-LA-ROLANDE

The Beaune-la-Rolande camp (Loiret Département) was located in the town of Beaune-la-Rolande in the Southern Zone in the Centre Region, just over 89 kilometers (55 miles) south of Paris. Beaune-la-Rolande was a French-run transit and internment camp and deportation center for Jews (men, women, and children) north of the Demarcation Line and closely associated with the camp at Pithiviers, located almost 18 kilometers (11 miles) northwest of Beaune-la-Rolande. Eigh teen thousand Jews were held in the camp; most of them were transported to Auschwitz, although some were deported to Compiègne and Drancy. Beaune-la-Rolande was built during the winter of 1939 to receive Canadian troops and, after the Fall of France, was converted into a German camp for French prisoners of war. After March 1941 it became an internment center for Parisian Jews and was administered by the office of the Loiret prefect. The German authorities, under orders from SS-Hauptsturmführer Theodor Dannecker, took over o...