July 31, 1944:
- "Among 1300 Jews deported from Drancy, France (northwest of Paris), to Auschwitz are 258 Jewish orphans seized in and around Paris on July 24.
Upon arrival at the camp, all 500 children and 300 adults are gassed.
This is the last transport of Jews from the Drancy camp to Auschwitz.
In total, 73,853 Jews have been shipped from Drancy to their deaths at Auschwitz and Sobibór. - Late July: "French Jew Maurice Löwenberg, founder of the National Liberation Movement resistance group, is tortured to death by the Gestapo.
- "SS General Richard Baer becomes the new Auschwitz commandant.
- "46,000 Jewish inmates are gassed and cremated at Auschwitz."
"This drawing by Holocaust survivor Gyorgy Kadar conveys the extremes of life in the concentration camps:
Emaciated and downcast prisoners contrast with the well-fed and arrogant camp guard.
While some guards did not overtly abuse the inmates, others used their positions of power to inflict sadistic punishments and humiliations on the men and women under their control.
Behavior of this sort, although fueled by antisemitism and fanned by years of war, arose also from some dark crevice of the human consciousness where brute force, a lust for dominance, and complete disdain for the dignity and lives of a powerless 'enemy' had taken root."