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Step 1: Feldkommandantur, German military command for Deux-Sèvres, 10 Place du Temple.
The Feldkommandantur enforces through the French administration the German orders organizing the persecution of Jews in the occupied zone: 27/09/1940: definition of the Jew, census of people; 18/10/1940: census of companies with a view to their dispossession; 26/04/1941: new definition and professional bans; 13/08/1941: confiscation of radios; 11/02/1942: curfew between 20 p.m. and 6 a.m. and ban on changing residence; 24/03/1942: new definition of the Jew; 29/05/1942: yellow star; 08/07/1942: ban on frequenting establishments open to the public (cafes, restaurants, concert halls, historical monuments, etc.), sporting events, parks, gardens, campsites, telephone booths; stores only accessible between 15 and 16 p.m.
Step 2: Prefecture, 4 rue Duguesclin, application of the anti-Semitic policy of Vichy and the Germans.
The prefects enforce the persecution measures taken by the Vichy regime. 03/10/1940 which duplicate or supplement the German ordinances: 1st status of Jews (definition of the Jew and professional prohibitions); 19/10/1940: census of Jews in the occupied zone; 30/10/1940: census of property in the occupied zone; 21/10/1940: application of the status to education; 02/06/1941: 2nd status: new broadened definition and new professional prohibitions; 09/07/1941: control of movements; 16/07/1941: numerus clausus for lawyers (2% Jews); 22/07/1941: “aryanization” (spoliation) of property; 11/08/1941: numerus clausus for doctors (2% Jews); 10/02/1942: ban on name changes. Organization of roundups ordered by the Germans: 09/10/1942: Foreign Jews; 31/01/1944: French Jews.
Step 3: The Jewish community of Niort, rue de la Juiverie
The Germans ordered the renaming of Rue de la Juiverie, which indicates the location of the old Jewish quarter in the Middle Ages. This community disappeared with the expulsion of the Jews from the kingdom by Philip the Fair in 1306. After the French Revolution, which granted equal rights and citizenship to Jews, a community was reconstituted. According to the 1940 census, 273 Jews were gathered in Niort: 160 lived there before the war (including an officiating minister, an indication of an organized community), 44 had taken refuge there during the exodus, and 51 had been driven back from Vendée to Deux-Sèvres by the Germans. The total number decreased rapidly, due to the mobility of Jews leaving Niort from the end of 1940 for other locations and for the southern zone in 1942 after the first major roundups. These decimated the community.
Step 4: Home of the AJZENSZTEJN family, 5 Rue du Soleil, arrested on October 9, 1942
The parents, Meilich and Frajda, born in Poland, settled in Sedan (Ardennes) where the father was a molder. Two sons were born, Bernard in 1932 and Maurice in 1938. Having taken refuge in Niort, the father became a traveling merchant. During the roundup of October 9, 1942 by the Niort police, the parents, sick, were hospitalized. The father was transferred to the Hôtel Dieu in Poitiers then to Drancy on May 6, 1943. He was deported without return in convoy 73 which left on May 15 for Kaunas (Lithuania)-Reval (Tallin, Estonia). The mother, hospitalized in psychiatry in Niort, survived. The children, taken in by Maxime Rousseau and his wife (33 rue Victor Hugo) in October 1942, arrested on January 31, 1944, were declared untransportable by Dr. Marboeuf, but the counter-visit by Dr. P. authorized their transfer to Poitiers in May 1944. They escaped deportation due to the disorganization of transport.
Step 5: Léon store (now H&M), 44 Rue Victor-Hugo, looted (“aryanized”) during the Occupation
This clothing store was owned by the Léon family, of Jewish origin, whose surname still adorns the facade. Henry Daniel Léon, who had left for London, died there on July 26, 1944. The mother, Rachel Juliette née Astruc, and her children, Micheline, Nicole, Monique and Jeannine, were present in Niort. The three youngest were enrolled at the Lycée de Jeunes Filles Jean Macé. Their home at 12 avenue Alsace-Lorraine having been confiscated by the Sipo-SD, they lived at 65 rue Gambetta. In 1942, the company was in the process of Aryanization. On July 26, 1942, the prefect informed the Sipo-SD that the family had fled. They were arrested in La Rochefoucauld (Charente) while trying to cross the demarcation line. Rachel and her daughters were interned in Poitiers then transferred to Drancy in 1943. They escaped deportation and were released on August 18, 1944.
Step 6: Home of Friedel KOENIGSBERG, 4 Rue Barbezière arrested on November 19, 1941
There were 16 isolated arrests of Jews by the Germans, including that of Friedel Kœnigsberg, 22, a saleswoman, of German nationality, born in Berlin on May 19, 1920, residing at 4 Rue Barbezière in Niort. She was arrested by the Feldgendarmerie on November 19, 1941 for not having complied with the instructions of the Kreiskommandantur of Niort (letter from the FK 605 of La Roche-sur-Yon to the prefect of Deux-Sèvres). She was incarcerated in the Niort remand center before being transferred to the Poitiers camp (order of the prefect of Deux-Sèvres of 5/12/1941 ordering her transfer). She was deported without return by convoy No. 8 which left Angers on July 20, 1942 to Auschwitz-Birkenau without passing through Drancy. Of the 879 deportees, men, women and children, there were only 17 survivors.
Step 7: Home of the FLAMHOLC family, 56 Rue Gambetta, arrested on October 9, 1942
The Flamholc family, of Polish origin, left Douai (Nord) during the exodus to take refuge in Niort, 54 rue Gambetta. The father, Lejbusz, was a tailor. With his wife Cyrla, they had two children, David born in Poland in 1924 and Louise born in Paris in 1934. Lejbusz worked for a tailor on rue Saint-Gelais. In June 1942, they received the yellow star. On October 9, 1942, David and his parents were arrested by the police, transferred to Drancy and deported without return to Auschwitz by convoy no. 42 of November 6, 1942. Louise was taken in by the Raud family, 54 rue Gambetta. Arrested on January 31, 1944, although she was suffering, as the medical certificate could not be presented, she was taken to hospital, where she was quickly transferred to rue des Trois Coigneaux, then to Drancy on February 2 before being deported by convoy no. 75 on May 30, 1944 and, aged 10, gassed upon her arrival at Birkenau.
Step 8: Home of the VOLLMANN-FLIGELMAN family, 251 avenue de La Rochelle, arrested on October 9, 1942
Maximilien and Sabina Vollmann, Richard and Louise Fligelman, their orphaned nephew and niece, born in Poland, found refuge in 1940 in Les Sables-d'Olonne. Expelled by the Germans, they settled in Saint-Florent. Richard won first prize in the Concours général de latin in 1, awarded by Jean Allard, a Latin teacher in Paris, originally from Niort. On October 1942, 9, Polish Jews, arrested by the Niort gendarmes, they were transferred to Drancy. Maximilien and Sabina were deported without return to Auschwitz by convoy no. 1942 on November 42, 6. Richard and Louise were placed in the Lamarck center, (Paris, 1942th arr.) a home of the Union générale des Israélites de France (UGIF), at the disposal of the Germans. Richard was deported without return by convoy No. 53 on March 25, 1943, bound for Sobibor. The Allard couple saved Louise. They were made Righteous Among the Nations.
Step 9: Site of the gathering of Jews rounded up in Deux-Sèvres on January 31, 1944, 92 rue des Trois Coigneaux
The Jews rounded up in Deux-Sèvres on the night of January 31, 1944 by French police and gendarmes were gathered in the premises of a slipper factory. There were 70 of them compared to the expected 108. Ten, hospitalized, were declared untransportable by doctors, including Dr. Marboeuf. Two children, Michel and Maurice Hagouel, managed to escape from the depot with the help of Mr. and Mrs. Poteau, uncle and aunt, and the kindness of police brigadier Maurice Gendreau and peace officer Aimé Maindron. They were both disciplined by police commissioner Jean Ligné, sanctions immediately aggravated by regional police superintendent Jean-Marie Lemoine. 58 were transferred to the Poitiers camp on February 2 by the 15:30 p.m. train, then to Drancy on February 3, 1944 and deported on February 10 by convoy no. 68 to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Step 10: Stele in memory of the Jews arrested in Deux-Sèvres and deported, 189 rue des Trois-Coigneaux
This stele in memory of the Jews arrested in Deux-Sèvres between 1941 and 1944 and deported was inaugurated on February 3, 2012. It is located near 92 rue des Trois Coigneaux, the site of a now-defunct slipper factory, a transit center for Jews from Deux-Sèvres rounded up on January 31, 1944. The list contains 143 names, including those of 33 children aged 3 to 14. A new, updated stele will soon be created, and 153 names will be inscribed on it, including 78 who lived in Niort. The extermination of the Jews of Europe, today called the Shoah, was decided and carried out by the Nazis, but the roundups in Deux-Sèvres (October 9, 10 and January 1942, 31) were carried out by the authorities of the French State. While the Germans arrested 01 Jews, 1944 were arrested by the French police and gendarmerie. There were four survivors, including Ida Fensterszab [Grinspan] (16-137).