The Camp des Milles was a French

internment camp Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simpl ...

, opened in September 1939, in a former

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, walls, edges, or o ...

factory near the village of

Les Milles Les Milles is a village, part of the communes of France, commune of Aix-en-Provence, in southern France. On the territory of the village Camp des Milles was opened in September 1939 in a former tile factory. Originally a French internment camp ...

, part of the

commune A commune is an alternative term for an intentional community. Commune or comună or comune or other derivations may also refer to: Administrative-territorial entities * Commune (administrative division), a municipality or township ** Communes of ...

of Aix-en-Provence (

Bouches-du-Rhône Bouches-du-Rhône ( , , ; oc, Bocas de Ròse ; "Mouths of the Rhône") is a department in Southern France. It borders Vaucluse to the north, Gard to the west and Var to the east. The Mediterranean Sea lies to the south. Its prefecture and ...

).Guénaël Lemouee
Camp des Milles : la mémoire de la déportation
'' La Provence'', 10 September 2012 In October 2015, the site was chosen by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

as the headquarters for its new Chair of Education for Citizenship, Human Sciences and Shared Memories.

Overview

History

The camp was first used to intern Germans and ex-Austrians living in the

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Fra ...

area, and by June 1940, some 3,500 artists and intellectuals were detained there.Aliette de Broqua
Ayrault au mémorial du camp des Milles
''

Le Figaro ''Le Figaro'' () is a French daily morning newspaper founded in 1826. It is headquartered on Boulevard Haussmann in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The oldest national newspaper in France, ''Le Figaro'' is one of three French newspapers of r ...

'', 10/09/2012Olivier Bertrand
Camp des Milles : «Parti sans laisser d’adresse»
'' Libération'', 10 July 2012 Inmates included men of letters such as Fritz Brugel,

Lion Feuchtwanger Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht. Feuchtwanger's J ...

, William Herzog, Alfred Kantorowicz,

Golo Mann Golo Mann (born Angelus Gottfried Thomas Mann; 27 March 1909 – 7 April 1994) was a popular German historian and essayist. Having completed a doctorate in philosophy under Karl Jaspers at Heidelberg, in 1933 he fled Hitler's Germany. He followe ...

Walter Hasenclever Walter Georg Alfred Hasenclever (8 July 1890 – 22 June 1940) was a German Expressionist poet and playwright. His works were banned when the Nazis came to power and he went into exile in France. There he was imprisoned as a "foreign enemy". H ...

, scientists such as

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

laureate

Otto Fritz Meyerhof Otto Fritz Meyerhof (; April 12, 1884 – October 6, 1951) was a German physician and biochemist who won the 1922 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Biography Otto Fritz Meyerhof was born in Hannover, at Theaterplatz 16A (now:Rathenaustra ...

, as well as musicians and painters such as

Erich Itor Kahn Erich Itor Kahn (23 July 1905 - 5 March 1956) was a German composer of Jewish descent, who emigrated to the United States during the years of National Socialism. Biography He was born in Rimbach in the Odenwald, the son of Leopold Kahn, a mathema ...

Hans Bellmer Hans Bellmer (13 March 1902 – 24 February 1975) was a German artist, best known for the life-sized pubescent female dolls he produced in the mid-1930s. Historians of art and photography also consider him a Surrealist photographer. Biography B ...

Max Ernst Max Ernst (2 April 1891 – 1 April 1976) was a German (naturalised American in 1948 and French in 1958) painter, sculptor, printmaker, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was a primary pioneer of the Dada movement and Surrealis ...

, Hermann Henry Gowa, Gustave Herlich, Max Lingner, Ferdinand Springer, Franz Meyer,

Jan Meyerowitz Jan Meyerowitz (23 April 1913 – 15 December 1998) was a German–American composer, conductor, pianist and writer. Life Meyerowitz was born Hans-Hermann Meyerowitz in Breslau (today Wrocław), the son of a manufacturer. From 1927, he studied ...

, Peter Lipman-Wulf,

François Willi Wendt François Willi Wendt (16 November 1909 – 15 May 1970) was a French non-figurative painter of German origin belonging to the New Ecole de Paris. After self-exile from Germany in 1937, he adopted France as his native country. In France he be ...

and Robert Liebknecht. Les Milles, Text auf dem Gedenkstein

Between 1941 and 1942 Le Camp des Milles was used as a transit camp for Jews, mainly men. Women were at the Centre Bompard in Marseille, while they waited for their visas and anthorisations to emigrate. As emigration became impossible, Les Milles became one of the ''centres de rassemblement'' before deportation. About 2,000 of the inmates were shipped off to the

Drancy internment camp Drancy internment camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German occupation of France during World War II. Originally conceived and built as a modernist urban commu ...

on the way to Auschwitz. After the war, the site was briefly re-opened in 1946 as a factory.

Memorial

Since 1993, the sites serves as a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

memorial. The "Fondation du camp des Milles: mémoire et éducation" (Foundation of the Camp des Milles: Memory and Education) is directed by Alain Chouraqui, a researcher at the

French National Centre for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

. On September 10, 2012, seventy years after the last train left from Les Milles to the Auschwitz concentration camp, the memorial was inaugurated by

French Prime Minister The prime minister of France (french: link=no, Premier ministre français), officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and the leader of the Council of Ministers. The prime minister i ...

Jean-Marc Ayrault Jean-Marc Ayrault (; born 25 January 1950) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 15 May 2012 to 31 March 2014. He later was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2017. He previously was Mayor of Nantes from 1989 t ...

. Elie Wiesel,

Simone Veil Simone Veil (; ; 13 July 1927 – 30 June 2017) was a French magistrate and politician who served as Health Minister in several governments and was President of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1982, the first woman to hold that office. ...

and

Serge Klarsfeld Serge Klarsfeld (born 17 September 1935) is a Romanian-born French activist and Nazi hunter known for documenting the Holocaust in order to establish the record and to enable the prosecution of war criminals. Since the 1960s, he has made notab ...

visited and praised the memorial. The Memorial also includes the sculpture, "''They will never be forgotten: Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, and Marceline Kogan''" by Hal Goldberg.

Film

In 1995, a movie entitled ''Les Milles'' commemorating this camp and the events that took place in this camp at the time of the Armistice in June 1940 was made.

UNESCO Chair

On 8 October 2015, UNESCO launched its new Chair for Education for Citizenship, Human Sciences and Shared Memories at the Camp des Milles in the presence of French President François Hollande. The Chair will focus on research and activism centered on the history of the Holocaust, citizenship and the prevention of genocide. According to Hollande, the Chair will serve as "a national site for training and citizenship through memory."

References

External links

Website about the Camp des Milles

(in French)

(in French)

(in French) {{Authority control Aix-en-Provence World War II internment camps in France Buildings and structures in Aix-en-Provence World War II memorials in France Tourist attractions in Aix-en-Provence Nazi concentration camps in France