June 28, 1942:
- "The Germans launch a summer offensive against the Red Army in the Don River basin of the Soviet Union."
"Hitler's fury over the Heydrich assassination was vented in Lidice.
The Czech village was brutally destroyed in a murderous burst of revenge carried out by SS and police.
On June 9-10, 1942, 199 of the village's adult males and 47 of its women were executed.
The remaining women were imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, and the children--only 16 of whom would survive the war--were sent to "educational" institutions.
The murdered citizens of Lidice were laid out in rows before being buried in a mass grave."
- Drancy
"An unfinished apartment complex in the Paris suburb of Drancy was a transit camp for most Jews shipped from France to Auschwitz.
From 1942 to 1944, more than 60 of the 79 trains that left for the East from France left from Drancy.
About 67,000 of 75,000 Jews deported from French soil spent time at Drancy.
"When Drancy opened on August 21, 1941, living conditions were abysmal.
There were 1200 wooden bunk-bed frames for the first 4000 inmates.
Forty to 50 internees crammed each room, and their diet consisted exclusively of cabbage soup.
As a result, the mortality rate at Drancy was very high.
"Ironically, material conditions improved when German officials took over camp administration from Vichy France officials in July 1943.
The last deportation transport left Drancy on July 31, 1944."