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Ideal homes - Drancy.

Bundesarchiv.

The Drancy housing estate, in deprived (still deprived) north-west Paris, was envisaged prewar as a "model housing development". It is infamous, however, as a holding/transit camp for French Jews on their way "east", run by the French (Vichy) Police but controlled by the German security department (SD). Apart from the availability of the accommodation, the Drancy estate was selected for this purpose in large part because of its proximity to a number of access points to the excellent railway system around Paris. Jews arriving from relatively distant locations could be transported to an adjacent railway station and bussed to Drancy; those heading outwards for "resettlement" in the East could be transported for entrainment to any one of a number of railway stations or sidings in the vicinity. This official photo shows happy-looking Jews posing on the balconies of one of the "model" apartment blocks. They were unlikely to be happy for long. The last transport of Jews from Drancy left at the very point of the city's liberation. In sadness, JR.