The Drancy internment camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German military administration of Occupied France during World War II. It was located in Drancy, a northeastern suburb of Paris, France. Between June 22, 1942, and July 31, 1944, during its use as an internment camp, 67,400 French, Polish, and German Jews were deported from the camp in 64 rail transports, which included 6,000 children. Only 1,542 remained alive at the camp when Allied forces liberated it on 17 August 1944.

Drancy was under the control of the French police until 1943 when administration was taken over by SS and officer Alois Brunner. In 2001, Brunner's case was brought before a French court by Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, which sentenced Brunner in absentia to a life sentence for crimes against humanity.

After the 1940 defeat by Germany and the 10 July 1940 vote of full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain, the Republic was abolished and Vichy France was proclaimed. The Vichy government cooperated with Nazi Germany, hunting down foreign and French Jews and turning them over to the Gestapo for transport to the Third Reich's extermination camps.

Coordinates: 48°56′N 2°27′E / 48.93°N 2.45°E / 48.93; 2.45

Drancy (French pronunciation: [dʁɑ̃.si]) is a commune in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 10.8 km (6.7 mi) from the center of Paris.

The name Drancy comes from Medieval Latin Derenciacum, and before that Terentiacum, meaning "estate of Terentius", a Gallo-Roman landowner.

In the 17th century, Drancy was divided into two distinct villages: Drancy le Grand and le Petit Drancy. The village is built on the old location of the hamlet of Groslay which was surrounded by the forest of Bondy — hence the name of rue des Bois de Groslay.

The end of nineteenth century was marked by the industrialisation and by the development of rail transports. During the Franco-Prussian war, Le Bourget was the site of an important battle and the castle of Ladoucette in Drancy was destroyed.

During the second world war, Drancy was the site of the Drancy deportation camp where Jews, Gypsies, and others were held before being shipped to the German concentration camps.

Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary (1989) gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place."

Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction between internment, which is being confined usually for preventive or political reasons, and imprisonment, which is being closely confined as a punishment for crime.

Internment also refers to the practice of neutral countries in time of war in detaining belligerent armed forces and equipment in their territories under the Second Hague Convention.

Early civilizations such as Assyria used forced resettlement of populations as a means of controlling territory, but it was not until much later in the late 19th and 20th centuries that records exist of groups of civilian non-combatants being concentrated into large prison camps.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights restricts the use of internment. Article 9 states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."