Concentration Camps In France

Numerous internment camps and concentration camps were located in France before, during and after World War II. Beside the camps created during World War I to intern German, Austrian and Ottoman civilian prisoners, the Third Republic (1871–1940) opened various internment camps for the Spanish refugees fleeing the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Following the prohibition of the French Communist Party (PCF) by the government of Édouard Daladier, they were used to detain communist political prisoners. The Third Republic also interned German anti-Nazis (mostly members of the Communist Party of Germany, KPD).

Then, after the 10 July 1940 vote of full powers to Marshal Philippe Pétain and the proclamation of the '' État français'' (Vichy regime), these camps were used to intern Jews, Gypsies, and various political prisoners (anti-fascists from all countries). Vichy opened up so many camps that it became a full economic sector, to the extent that historian Maurice Rajsfus writes: "The quick opening of new camps created jobs, and the Gendarmerie never ceased to hire during this period." In any case, most of these camps were closed definitively after the liberation of France at the end of World War II. Some were however used during the Algerian War (1954–1962). Several of these were then used to intern ''harkis'' (Algerians who had fought on the French side) after the 19 March 1962 Évian Accords. Finally, the Camp de Rivesaltes in the Pyrénées-Orientales and the camp of Bourg-Lastic in the Puy de Dôme were also used to intern Kurdish refugees from Iraq in the 1980s.

Nineteenth century onward

First World War and later

The first internment camps were opened during the First World War (1914–1918) to detain civilian prisoners (mainly German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman). These prisoners were detained in Pontmain in the department of Mayenne, Fort-Barreaux in Isère, in the military camp of Graveson (Bouches-du-Rhône), in Frigolet

near Tarascon (Bouches-du-Rhône), Noirlac (Abbey) (Cher (department), Cher), and Ajain(Creuse).

Other internment camps were used for Armenians in the 1920s-1930s (Mirabeau camp, Victor Hugo camp and Oddo Camp in Marseille); Gypsies after the 1912 Act on nomadism (for instance in the Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, but also in iron mines in the Manche and other disaffected industrial centers in Mayenne, in the Manche, in Loire-Atlantique, in the Sarthe, in the Maine-et-Loire, etc.).

Spanish Civil War

The most infamous internment camps before World War II were used to intern the Spanish Republican refugees and military personnel during the Spanish Civil War. In 2 weeks in January and February 1939 around 500,000 men, women and children crossed the border.Franco refugees still haunted by the past: ‘We were cold, hungry and scared’
The Guardian, 2019 These were interned mostly in camps in the Roussillon Province, such as the Camp de concentration d'Argelès-sur-Mer although internment camps for defeated Spanish Republicans were established in all of French territory, even in Brittany, in the north-west of France. These camps were located in:

*Agde in the Hérault department (near Montpellier)
* Argelès-sur-Mer, between Perpignan and the border
* Camp Gurs in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques, which received Spanish refugees following the defeat of the Spanish Republic. These were distinguished by the French state into Brigadists, '' gudaris'' ( Basque nationalists) who had escaped from the siege of Santander, pilots, and farmers. The latter had trades that were in low demand, and the French government, in agreement with the Francoist government, incited them to return to Spain. The great majority did so and were turned over to the Francoist authorities in Irún. From there they were transferred to the Miranda de Ebro camp for purification according to the Law of Political Responsibilities.
* Camp Vernet near Pamiers, in the Ariège.
*Moisdon-la-Rivière and Juigné-des-Moutiers in Loire-Atlantique department (Brittany).
* The Camp de Rivesaltes, in the department of Pyrénées-Orientales. The Jewish detainees were sent to Drancy internment camp, near Paris, the Gypsies to Saliers and the Spaniards to camp Gurs.

To these camps must be added the camps for the German prisoners in 1939 (sometimes overlapping with those above), and those of the Colonial Empire, not well known in Europe.

Furthermore, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, who had been named Consul in Paris for Immigration, organized the transportation to Chile of 2,200 Spanish refugees who had been detained in the camps on board the ''Winnipeg'', which departed on 2 August 1939, and arrived in Valparaíso at the beginning of September 1939.

After 1940 when the Nazi Germany divided France in occupied and free zone, the camps were also used to imprison Jews, Gypsies, and sometimes gays, and the original prisoners were used as forced labor to make the camps larger.

During World War II and the Vichy regime

As early as 1939, the existing camps were indiscriminately filled with German anti-Nazis (Communists, German Jews, etc. Following the 1940 defeat, and the 10 July 1940 vote of full powers installing the Vichy regime, these camps were filled with Jews, first with foreign Jews, then indifferently with foreign and French Jews. The Vichy government would progressively hand them up to the Gestapo, and they would all transit by Drancy internment camp, the last stop before concentration camps in the Third Reich and in Eastern Europe and the extermination camps.

Beside Jews, Germans and Austrians were immediately rounded-up in camps, as well as Spanish refugees, who were later deported. 5,000 Spaniards thus died in Mauthausen concentration camp.Film documentary
on the website of the '' Cité nationale de l'histoire de l'immigration'' The French colonial soldiers were interned by the Germans on French territory, instead of being deported.

The Third Republic and the Vichy regime would successively call these places "reception camps" (), "internment camps" (), ''séjour'' camps (), "guarded ''séjour'' camps" (), "prisoner camps" (), etc. Another category was created by the Vichy regime: the "transit camps" (''"camps de transit''"), referring to the fact the detainees were to be deported to Germany. Such "transit camps" included Drancy, Pithiviers, etc. In particular, Pithiviers was used in 1941 for the green ticket roundup, and Drancy in 1942 for the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup, before the victims were deported., as quoted in

During the 1944 Battle of Marseille and urban in the center of town, 20,000 people were expelled from their homes and interned during several months in military camps nearby Fréjus ( La Lègue, Caïs and Puget).

The camp of Struthof, or Natzweiler-Struthof, in Alsace, one of the concentration camps created by Nazis on annexed French territory, included a gas chamber which was used to kill at least 86 detainees (mostly Jewish) with the aim of forming a collection of preserved skeletons for the use of Nazi professor August Hirt.

Second World War camps

* Aincourt, in Seine-et-Oise, was the first internment camp in the Northern Zone. It was opened on 5 October 1940, and quickly filled with members of the French Communist Party (PCF)
* Les Alliers, near Angoulême, in Charente
* Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans (Saline royale d'Arc-et-Senans) in the Doubs