last train from Toulouse to Dachau - July 1944

a plaque was unveiled at Toulouse railway station this weekend to commemorate the 'train fantôme' or 'ghost train' which departed Toulouse on 3 July 1944 with 600 deportees -mostly Jews and partisans- This was the last train to depart Toulouse for Dachau. Forced to detour Paris - just about to fall to the Allies - the train was shunted back and forth on what was left of the French rail network and took the best part of two months to reach Germany. With many summary executions, escape attempts, and attacks by Allied planes en route, with little food or water, and forced to march for long distances under the hot sun where the line was cut, conditions in the cattle trucks must have been hell on earth...This particular tragic odyssey is apparently well-known in France and has been the subject of at least one book....but was new to me..

http://www.ladepeche.fr/article/201...nt-hommage-aux-deportes-du-train-fantome.html

Le train fantôme les hante encore - Toulouse : LaDépêche.fr

 

..here's a good link.
L'odyssée des déportés du train fantôme - L'Amicale
Still in French, but with a map depicting the route taken by the train and if you click on the various numbered place names you get more info and pictures of the happenings en route eg on 18 August 1944 (some 40 days after leaving Toulouse) the 600 deportees were herded onto cattle wagons at Sorgues after being frog-marched 17 km under a broiling sun after the tracks were cut at Roquemaure by Allied air attacks and resistance activities. There's a report from the station master who describes how French rail workers tried to bring food and water to a wagon of women and children and being prevented from doing so by the train's German guards - its quite amazing that this was still happening just days before the fall of Paris...

 

If my memory is correct the last train to leave Paris to Buchenwald was on August 21st.