Serendipity only prompted me to get interested in this convoy. It is the first time I start a personal research on deportation1 . Peter Landé, a full-time volunteer with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., sent me documents that have been recently declassified by the US authorities pertaining to collection RG65003 and asked me if I could find there anything exploitable. The first item fitting this criterion is a list of deportees, foreign Jews, who left Gurs for Drancy on February 27, 1943, designated here as the USHMM list. In order to avoid ramming into open doors, I first checked that the Archives Départementales des Pyrénées-Atlantiques2 in Pau did not keep this list in their “Gurs” collection. But I found there another list related to the same convoy. I requested and received photocopies3 . This second list is designated here as the Pau list.
The book “Mémorial de la Déportation des Juifs de France” by Serge Klarsfeld, Paris 1978, FFDJF, devotes a long text to this convoy which left Drancy on March 4, 1943 for Majdanek under number 50 and to convoy 51 departed two days later for the same destination. They have been ordered by the Germans after the assassination of two German officers, and were to gather and deport 2000 men, Jews, foreigners, between 16 and 65 years old and able to work. Reading this text sheds light on the relations between the Germans and the French authorities at that time.
The convoy nr. 50 has been essentially made of internees who left Gurs (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) on February 27, 1943. They had been “concentrated” there during the preceding days from several camps, places or départements of Southern France.
The Pau list
This list is handwritten on two school copybooks4 . It lists the inmates in sequence by sub-convoy of arrival in Gurs. It lists 953 inmates, alphabetically made up in each subconvoy. Each inmate has a sequential number, family name, given name, age, “race” and nationality. The “origin”, i.e. where from the inmate has been transported to Gurs, is known for each sub-convoy. If after “sifting”5 the departure has not been delayed, it is confirmed by a 27FEV43 rubber stamp, and sometimes in script.
The USHMM list
This typewritten document lists the inmates of the convoy leaving Gurs for Drancy. The 922 persons are ordered alphabetically. Only partly readable the list originates in a microfilm taken from the original documents. It gives a sequential number, family name, given name and full birth date.
It was tempting to merge these two information sources and to reconcile them with the already published documents: the Klarsfeld Mémorial, the database of the French Holocaust Memorial Center6 and the Yad Vashem7 database. The initial purpose was to document the fate of the interned persons who had arrived in Gurs but did not appear in the sources about further steps of the Holocaust. There may be several reasons for such “disappearances”: escape, liberation, death en route, etc. The list of these persons whose fate remains unknown, probably a small number only, would be the starting point for a new research.
The Rivesaltes list
After the merger of the two lists was practically finished, we continued exploiting the documents received from the USHMM. After the Gurs list one finds a list under the heading “Centre d’Hébergement de Rivesaltes” 8 called “Convoi9 de Gurs du 23 novembre 1942”. It is typewritten, the first 37 pages are readable, the 4 last are not exploitable. A note in script, the only readable information on the last page, mentions that the convoy comprises 584 persons.
The convoy is comprised of male and female interned persons. Married women are identified by their married names, followed by their maiden name. The birth dates are present and thus married couples can be reconstructed with a slight error risk. We read, for instance: 386 PARDUBSKY née ALLERAND Régina 5.10.1897 387 d° Georges 18.3.1886
The name Pardubsky rang a bell, because I had seen it in the USHMM list. Therefore I browsed through this “Rivesaltes list” checking it with the list of the deportees of convoy 50 in Klarsfeld’s Mémorial book. I found 59 such correspondences, which paralleled a question already put in the earlier phase of research: why did the origin Rivesaltes and the département code 66 for Pyrénées-Orientales not appear in the Pau list?
I first assumed that these inmates had returned from Rivesaltes to Gurs between end of November 1942 and end of February 1943. The archives of Pyrénées-Orientales proved I was wrong: “the Rivesaltes camp has been officially closed on December 1, 1942 and the last inmates were evacuated at the end of November 1942”. The Rivesaltes list actually documents a convoy from Rivesaltes to Gurs: it complements the Pau list and permits additional reconciliations.
The exploitation of the data has permitted identifying 927 distinct individuals, among whom 812 were deported in convoy 50, a significant part of the 937 men in this transport. There are also 38 deportees pertaining to other convoys. The fate of 73 further men is unknown as yet. There are 353 double mentions, i.e. persons identified upon their arrival in Gurs or their departure from Rivesaltes for Gurs as well as in the USHMM list when they leave Gurs for Drancy. The total indexation is comprised of 1280 entries.
We owe the major part of the indexation to volunteer members of the Cercle de Généalogie Juive10 . Also we have benefited from assistance by the Archives of Mémorial de la Schoah, Paris, the Dorot society and Mr. Marcel Martinez. Here we only list those whose fate remains unknown as yet. The full list is available on the Research page of this website. Two remarks arise from this research:
The guidelines for selecting the deportees
On the Pau list, the right-hand page bears, for certain inmates, a note in a different handwriting. It results from a new review of the personal file, the “sifting”, aimed at checking whether the deportee-to-be meets the imposed criteria: man, Jewish, aged 16/18 to 65, able to work, foreign national, no French ties. In order to assess the possible French ties 3 columns have been provided: French ties, military services in France during the war, remarks.
Some examples: French ties: French parents, one French son, French brothers Military services: War 139-1940, front unit or Morocco/Tunisia Remarks: too old (68 yrs) For some of these inmates the column Remarks bears “reserved”, “B” or “R”. Then the last column has not been rubber-stamped 27FEV43 but shows, in script, 3/3/43, less often 27/2/43 and in some cases “B” or nothing at all.
Could this be a make-believe that only foreign Jews are deported and that those with French family or who have committed themselves to France in wartime are protected? This fiction will last a few days only. The “3/3/43” will leave Drancy on the 6th in convoy 51, also for Majdanek.
There are protected nationalities: Hungarians and Italians according to the German instructions, but also Egyptians and Greeks. The majority of the inmates are noted as “Israelites”, the few ones declaring they are “without religion”, Catholic or Protestant, except one, share the fate of the Jews. Curiously, only those with numbers 1036 to 1038, who declare they are “orthodox” are spared.
The reliability of sources
Between the three lists (Pau, Rivesaltes and USHMM) there often are differences in spellings and dates, and still other discrepancies with the published databases. Having two entries for the same persons makes the identification easier. Nevertheless it seems often impossible to make sure of a name’s spelling and even of an exact date. As early as 1978 Serge Klarsfeld has noted the poor readability of the deportation lists for convoys 50 and 51.
Before showing some specific examples one must consider the many possible causes of uncertainty. The writing of Germanic names and of Yiddish name minimizations may widely vary according whether they are spoken by a Pole, a Russian, a German or a French. Names written in Polish often cannot be read aloud by the French clerk or Gendarme, who might mix up the many double consonants. Copying lists from other lists multiplies the risk of errors, indexing them adds more risks. In their present condition of readability deciphering the documents often requires some imaginativeness. Therefore let us remain humble and criticize nobody. Even published sources keep some uncertainty. Some examples
Unreadable names: in the USHMM list we had identified nr 300, Rubenkes Moses. Later on in the second Pau copybook, under nr 2207, we deciphered only R???kes. The search engine of Mémorial de la Shoah requires that at least the two first characters be input. Accordingly we combined R with each vowel (Ra, Re,..) and the birth year 1887 (from the age, 56 in 1943) and found a Rubenkes Moses deported in convoy 50.
Different spelling of names: the two names Pliker 1056 and Pliner 883 are clearly readable and identify the same person, age and birth date fit. Nothing fitting has been found in the databases. The internee is not identified as yet.
Partly faulty citation: Walder Leo, 1073, is not listed in the Klarsfeld Mémorial, but a Walder Lea deported by convoy 50. She would have been the only woman in the transport of February 27, 1943 from Gurs to Drancy, but the person is indeed a Leo as confirmed by the German Gedenkbuch.
Two names: we have found two Sloma. Jacob Mordka born 1922 (585 and 1070) can be found on the Wall of Names with the given name Jacob. Chaim, born 1893 (586 and 1069) is cited by Klarsfeld and the Mémorial database with the correct birth date; in the Mémorial database he is named Jacob and accordingly he is absent from the Wall of Names.
Different dates: Henri Loeb (80 and 2249) was born 1888 according to the USHMM list, and was 55 in 1943 according to the Pau list, which checks. The Mémorial database mentions 1880.
We have probably made several mistakes in our own work. Other researchers will find and publish them. The only merit of the abovementioned examples is to provide some keys for further research.
The following table mentions the persons found in the lists whose fate we have been unable to find.If they have not survived the Holocaust they deserve at least that a Page of Testimony be placed for them at Yad Vashem.
This puts an end to this limited endeavor. I hope other researchers will correct, complement and extend it.
April 2007 Ernest Kallmann
Notes from the author
1I discard here my participation in indexing Holocaust lists as a Jewishgen volunteer 2Continental France is divided into 95 territorial units, called départements . Each keeps those documents pertaining to its territory. Gurs is located in Pyrénées-Atlantiques, 3Call number 72W44 4As each copybook begins with sequential number 1, they have been indexed in two separate series. 5« Sifting », viz. below “The guidelines for selecting the deportees”
When this study about the constitution of convoy 50, was proposed to us for publication, we agreed, believing that our visitors could be interested in this work. This study is composed of: • A methodological text, presented on this page • An Excel file, showing the various sources’ cross-checking results, downloadable here. • A guideline through the Excel file. • A spreadsheet presenting the names of those whose fate remains unknown to this day.
A part of the information presented on the Excel spreadsheet are searchable on the research page, under the headline Internees and deportees. Some of the people found on this database can also be found on the various lists about French internment camps’ database. We would be happy to receive from researchers and families further information in order to develop this work. You can send us your messages here.
Manfred Starkhaus is born in Fürth, Germany in 1925. He is Siegmund Starkhaus and Elise Rosenthal’s elder son. Siegmund was arrested in 1938 and deported to Poland; Elise takes her children to France in 1939. Edith, the youngest, leaves for the United-States on the S.S Mouzhino in 1941 from Marseille on a Kindertransport. Manfred attends class at the Lectoure high school in the Gers department. He’s a brilliant student with painting talents. On February 24th 1943, Manfred is arrested at 6 in the morning during a roundup. On February 27 he is part of a transport leaving Gurs for Drancy. The head teacher of Manfred's school writes to the commander of the camp of Gurs to try to free Manfred, but the letter arrives too late and Manfred is already gone. Deported with convoy 50 from Drancy to Majdanek, he did not survive.
