Night train to nightmare

Was the weather the same over Angers 70 years ago? Had it the same pale colors, a mix of blue and grey, an association of unobstructed sky and, further, a gate of grey clouds? Had the "travellers" leaving Angers the same vision of the quiet atmosphere of the city only troubled by shouts of birds? What those travellers had in mind watching through little holes of the wagons ordinary scenes of a summer evening when their train left the quiet midwestern town? 

Seventy years ago, on July 20th of 1942, at about 08.35 pm, a convoy n° 8 of 824 persons, men, women and children, all aged from 13 to about 90 years old left the Saint-Laud railway station en route to Drancy. All the "passengers" were Jews. They started from there a long and horrible journey of three never ceasing days in livestock wagons till Auschwitz where for most of them the travel through life would take end... 

The atmosphere was normal at Saint-laud on that special day, at that special hour in a normal year. The plaforms were empty, no train was due to leave. Silence wrapped the tracks and the plaforms from time to time. Leaving the rememberance for these martyrs taking possession of the place. Seventy years, is the souvenir of the "travellers" who left and never came back still alive?