The Convoi des 31000 or Convoy of the 31000s was a deportation convoy that left Romainville, France, for Auschwitz Concentration Camp on 24 January 1943. The women who were transported were mostly Communist Party members or Resistance fighters. Its name stemmed from the fact that the women were assigned numbers between 31625 and 31854 when they reached Auschwitz. It was the only convoy to transport women of the French Resistance to Auschwitz. Out of 230 women who arrived at the concentration camp, only 49 survived their ordeal. A number of women from the convoy testified against the Nazis after the war, wrote autobiographies, were awarded the Legion of Honour or were decreed to be Righteous Among the Nations.
Background
In 1941 Otto von Stülpnagel introduced the Night and Fog directive (Nacht und Nebel) which provided for deporting "enemies of the Reich" to the eastern territories in order to isolate them from the rest of the world, forbidding them to make any communications with their families. For the Germans, the directive was designed to alarm the families involved and dissuade them from continuing their relatives' work in the Resistance. This can be seen in a letter from Heinrich Himmler to members of the Gestapo: "After careful consideration, the will of the Führer is to modify the measures against those who are guilty of crimes against the Reich or against the German forces in the occupied territories. Our Führer believes that a prison sentence or hard labour for life sends a message of weakness. The only possible deterrent is either the death penalty or something that will leave the family and the rest of the population in doubt as to the fate of the criminal. Deportation to Germany will fulfil this purpose."
Over the months, this practice was used against French people who were suspected of espionage, treason, aiding enemies of the Reich or illegal possession of weaponsall accusations which were liable for the death penalty.
Journey
Detention
Those waiting to be deported were imprisoned at Fort Romainville, a former prison which was commandeered by Nazi forces in 1940 for use as a transit camp. One of the first women in the convoy to arrive at the camp was Maria Alonso, a Spaniard, who was arrested for providing a mimeograph machine to resistance fighters. Alonso was appointed head of the Women's Section. Ten days later, she was joined by the young women involved in printing and distributing communist propaganda under Arthur Tintelin. They included Madeleine Doiret, Jacqueline Quatremaire, Lucienne Thevenin, Jeanne Serre and Vittoria Daubeuf. On 24 August, the women caught during the Politzer-Pican-Dallidet raid in Paris arrived, including Madeleine Dissoubray, Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, Danielle Casanova, Charlotte Delbo and Madeleine Passot, as well as a young girl of sixteen, Rosa Floch, arrested for having written “Vive les Anglais” on the wall of her school.
The inmates set up a system of pooling food packages to improve each other's rations in view of their widespread hunger. Danielle Casanova convinced some of the women whose windows faced the street to shout about their poor provisioning. This forced the director of the camp to improve their food. Casanova and Germaine Pican were sent to the dungeon for this action, but the soup the women were given did become more substantial. Another inmate, Marie Politzer, organized gymnastics sessions and cold showers every morning to keep the women fit.
A newsletter, gleaned from listening to the guards, cooks and new arrivals, circulated in the prison. Written in methylene blue on the wrapping paper of Red Cross parcels, it was titled Le Patriote de Romainville. The testimonies of women such as Madeleine Passot and Madeleine Dissoubray show that the internees felt they were a “team” and did not have to “make friends” because they were all closely connected. As in other prison camps, theatre became important for the women: Charlotte Delbo directed plays and Cécile Charua made the costumes. After the Sunday midday meal, "Artistic afternoons" were organized, attracting some German guards and the male detainees. One of the last women to reach Romainville was Georgette Rostaing, who had been arrested on 3 January 1943.
Departure
On the evening of 22 January 1943, all the women in the fort were gathered together and 222 of them are called forward. They were told that they would need only one small suitcase and warm clothes for their departure. Although the women did not know their final destination, they were apparently not afraid, as they believed being sent to work in a factory in Germany could not be worse than the cells of the Gestapo.