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Jacques SCIANDRA
JACQUES SCIANDRA’S LIFE STORY:
HIS ARREST, DEPORTATION AND THE TIME HE SPENT IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS.
COMBATING HOLOCAUST DENIAL
The Convoy 77 nonprofit organization offered us the opportunity to research Mr. Jacques Sciandra’s life story and to write his biography. The information they shared with us suggested that he might have gone by three different names. Unfortunately, after three months of searching through numerous records, we were unable to identify any clear connection between him and his potential pseudonyms, Jean Lambert and Isaac Lewkowicz. We therefore decided to focus solely on his journey as a deportee. In order to provide a visual representation of the only period of his life for which we have conclusive evidence, we produced a series of images depicting the various concentration camps in which he was interned.
- Biography (image 1): Jacques Sciandra was born on August 7, 1926 in Toulon, in the Var department of France. His parents were Marcel Felix Marius Sciandra, a merchant born on September 27, 1897 and Anna Augustine Baloy, who did not work.
- On July 3, 1944, when he was 17, he was arrested in Lyon, in the Rhone department of France, for having carried out acts of Resistance (he and his father had been sabotaging railroad tracks).
- The French police then transferred him to Drancy internment camp, north of Paris, where he was held under the serial number 24,835. (image 2)
- He was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland on Convoy 77 on July 31, 1944. His internment record states that he entered the camp on August 4 and was a political deportee. He remained in there until late January, 1945. (image 3)
- From there, he was transferred to Sachenhausen, which was used to hold political deportees from all over Europe. (image 4)
- On February 16, 1945 Jacques Sciandra arrived in the Mathausen camp. (image 5)
- Mathausen was severely overcrowded at the time, so in order to reduce the number of prisoners, the Nazis set up a satellite camp in Amstetten. Their intention was to kill the prisoners through forced labor. (image 6)
- Jacques Sciandra was transferred to Amstetten on March 23, just three days after the camp opened.
- He left the camp three weeks later, on April 11, and was sent back to Mathausen.(image 7). Unfortunately, this is where we lost track of him.
- Lastly, we found Jacques Sciandra’s death certificate, dated 2008. We then designed a memorial plaque that we would like to see installed in the city of Toulon in his honor. (At the time of writing, Toulon City Hall has not yet responded to our request). (image 8)
