Translated from the biography established by the AFMD (Friends of the Foundation for the Memory of Deportation from the Allier Department):

Robert LEWY

Robert Benoit Édouard Ernest LÉWY was born on April 26, 1909 at his parents’ home at n° 10 rue Taylor in the 10^th district of Paris.

His father Albert was a merchant, and his mother Jeanne née CERF was a housewife.

He was a bachelor working as a colonial administrator at Fort-Lamy in Chad. He was living in Fort-Lamy in 1939.

Having returned to Vence (Alpes-Maritimes) in France, he was ousted from the Colonial Administration under the terms of the anti-Jewish laws. He then joined the “Jove” network of the Resistance in June, 1941 as n° 2043 with the code name “Lenoir”.

Reinstated on January 7, 1943 in the staff of the Colonial Administration owing to his service record, he was ordered by his network to return to his administration in Vichy “to carry out the mission of contacting the Resistance movement in that city and in Lyon with the aim of arranging to send a contingent of reserve officers to North Africa”, according to the statement given by Jean Chabert, head of the “Kerdanic” resistance unit in the Vence sector.

He returned to his post as colonial administrator in Vichy (Allier department), where he resided at n° 4 rue de la Porte de France.. He was arrested for being Jewish by the Gestapo in his office in the Ministry of the Colonies in Vichy on June 27, 1944.

He was interned in the Mal-Coiffée German military prison in Moulins (Allier), before being transferred to Drancy on July 15, 1944.

On July 31, 1944 he was deported from Drancy to Auschwitz in convoy n° 77.

In  Le Mémorial de la Déportation des Juifs de France, Serge Klarsfeld writes about convoy n° 77: “The number of deportees was 1300. This convoy 77 (…) hauled toward the Auschwitz gas chambers more than 300 children under the age of 18. (…) 291 men were selected with I.D. numbers B 3673 to B 3963; the same for 283 women (A 16457 to A 16739). In 1945 there were 209 survivors, of whom 141 were women”.

Above document: Extract from the list of convoy n° 77. Source: Arolsen International Research Service 1.19.9/11191151.

He died on September 30, 1944 at Auschwitz according to the public records of Paris’s 10^th district and the Journal Officiel n° 72 of March 26, 2008.

“Died for France”

He was posthumously allotted Deported Resistance Activist card n° 1.001.08143 on January 10, 1952.

 

(Source for the above document: Paris archives 3595 W 45)

 

“Died in deportation” according to the decree of the State Defense Secretariat of March 19, 2008, published in the Journal Officiel n° 72 of March 26, 2008.

Sources:

– Paris Archives 3595 W 45

– Contemporary Jewish Documentation

– Section of the Archives of the Victims of Contemporary Conflicts

– Public Records Bureau of Paris’s 10^th district

– Klarsfeld, Serge: List of the transfers from Vichy to Drancy on July 15,

– Klarsfeld, Serge: Memorial to the Jews Deported from France: 1942-1944  1978

– MemorialgenWeb  Internet site

– Arolsen International Research Service 1.1.9.9/11191114, 1.19.9/11191151