Camp of Gurs

Gurs, funny of syllable,
like a sanglot
who does not leave the throat. The camp of Gurs is a refugee camp built in France on the common of Oloron in the Béarn by the government of Edouard Daladier (Radical Socialist) between on March 15th and on April 25th, 1939 to accommodate war veterans of the Spanish civil war after the takeover of the general Franco.

At the beginning of the Second world war, the same government interned there foreign citizens amenable to the countries in war against France, as well as militant French of the Communist party favorable to the victory of Germany. After the Armistice signed with the Germany in 1940 by the Vichy government, it was used like Concentration camp to acueillir Juif S of all nationalities - except Frenchwoman - captured and off-set by the Nazi regime in countries under its control (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands).

During the war, the camp receives in addition to the people who had illegally crossed the border of the zone occupied by the Germans, of the Spaniards who had already been held with the camp and which, released with the autumn 1940, and which sauntered in the area without justifying employment, Spaniards coming from other camps which last being closed because of the living conditions or the low number of prisoners, the stateless people, the Gipsies, unquestionable captive of common right on standby of judgment (medium of the prostitution, black-market, false paper.).

After the Release of France, and before its permanent closure in 1946, German prisoners of war, Spanish “collaborationists French” and combatants were briefly interned there who had taken share with resistance against the German occupation, but whose will to put an end at all costs to the fascistic dictatorship of the general Francisco Franco made them dangerous to the eyes of the Alliés.

60.559 people were interned there, and 1.072 died there, between its in March 1939 creation and its closing at the end of the war in August 1944.

The camp

Following the victory of Free over the Spanish republicans in 1939, of many combatants, with those which feared the pro-Franco reprisals, fled towards France. The government of Edouard Daladier built several camps to accommodate the refugees. Gurs most important of them, was set up near the city of the same name, in the department of the Yrénées-Atlantiques and the area Aquitaine, with 84 kilometers in the east of the Atlantic Ocean and 34 kilometers in the north of the Spanish border.

One chooses for the installation of the camp a lengthened hill, punt at his top, argillaceous, whose utility for agriculture was practically null: grounds with corn and moors with bovines. Construction began on March 15th, 1939 and was not completed on arrival of the first group of refugees, on April 4th of the same year.

Living conditions

The camp extended on 1400 meters from length and 200 broad, covering a surface of 28 hectares. Only one street crossed it over its length. On both sides of this one pieces of 200  were delimited; meters length and of 100 of broad, called small islands , seven on a side and six of the other. The pieces were separate from/to each other, and of the street by low walls which were double on the external part, forming a way borrowed by the guards.

Each piece contained 30 huts, of a total of 382. This type of hut had been invented by the French troops during the First World War; installed close to the face but sheltered intensity of the shootings of enemy artillery, they were intended to accommodate for a few days the soldiers who arrived of the back and who awaited their assignment with the trench which they were to defend. They were made planks of wood covered with waterproofed fabric and were of identical construction and size. No window or opening of ventilation had been envisaged. They did not protect from the cold and very quickly the impermeable fabric worsened, letting enter the rainwater. There were no pieces of furniture and it was necessary to sleep on filled up bags of straw, jetés to very the ground. During the periods of maximum occupation of the camp, each hut accommodated to 60 people. Food was rare and of bad quality; there were no medical, of running water, nor of hygiene. The camp of did not have drainage. The zone, because of the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean, is often sprinkled by the rain, with the result that the argillaceous ground, except for the summer months, was a permanent mud pit. The prisoners, with the few stones which they could find, after a fashion tested of empierrer the ways to solve the problem of mud. Shrubs which had been stripped their spines had been laid out to facilitate the passage of the people between the huts and the latrines.

In each small island there were rudimentary wash-hand basins, similar to the feeding troughs used for the animals, and a 2 height meters platform, which one reached by a staircase and on which were built the latrines. Under the platform, large tanks collected the excrements. Once full, they were transported in cart outside the camp the fences rose with 2 meters in height, were not electrified, nor not marked out turns of duty with sentinels directing their machine-guns on the prisoners. Environment was radically different from that of the concentration camps and it there have neither execution nor sadism on behalf of the guards. Around the camp, dependences intended for the administration and the body of guard had been set up. The administration and the guard of the camp depended on the military authority until the autumn 1940, then passed under the civil authority to the advent of the Régime of Vichy.

Prisoners

Coming from Spain

The refugees coming from Spain were divided into four groups carrying of the French names.
  • Brigadistes : Soldiers voluntary or mercenaries, in general originating in Central Europe (Russia, of Germany, the Baltic States, Austria, Czechoslovakia, etc) come to make the Revolution in Spain in the international Brigades. From their countries of origin it was not possible for them to turn over on their premises. Many will manage to flee and the majority does not finish beginning in the French Foreign legion.
  • Basques : It was about gudaris (Basque nationalists), which had been able to leave the surrounding of Santander and which, transported by sea towards the republican zone, had continued the fight of outside. Because of proximity of Gurs of their ground of origin, they almost managed all to obtain supports which enabled them to leave the camp and to find work and refuge in France.
  • Aviators : they were members of the personnel with ground of republican aviation. As mechanics, it was easy for them to find companies French which, giving them work, enabled them to leave the camp
  • Spanish : they was peasants or they occupied of the not very required stations. They did not have anybody in France which had been able to be interested in them. They represented a load for the French government, and that was enough, in agreement with the pro-Franco government, so that they are repatriated in Spain. It is what the great majority of them did, transferred to Irùn with the pro-Franco authorities, from where they were sent to the camp of Miranda de Ebro in order to be standardized politically.

From 1939 with the autumn 1940, it is the Spanish language which dominated in the camp the prisoners created an orchestra and arranged a sports ground. July 14th, 1939, French national festival, them: 17000 internees of Spanish origin ravelled martialement on the sports ground and sang the Marseillaise, and offered demonstrations of sport, and concerts vocal and instrumental.

The Germans of the international Brigades published a newspaper which appeared under the name of " Lagerstimme K.Z. Gurs" , and lived more than 100 numbers. The inhabitants of the surroundings could approach the camp and sell food products to the internees. During some time, the commander of the camp authorized some of the women of the camp to rent a cart with horse and let them leave the camp to buy provisions at less low cost. A service of mail functioned and, although in a very occasional way, the visits were authorized.

Coming from France

At the beginning of the second world war, the Government Daladier, then the Vichy government of used the camp for prisoners of common right, the undesirable ones, then after the Armistice of June 22nd, 1940 for Jewish families of the zones occupied by Germany:
  • Of the Germans who were in France, whatever their origin or political tendency, as foreign citizens of an enemy nation. Among those a big number of German Jews was which had precisely fled the Nazi regime.
  • Of the French activists of left (trade unionists, Socialists, anarchists and especially Communists), become dangerous since the pact germano-Soviet. The first of them arrived on June 21st, 1940 and the majority of them was reallocated in other camps before the end of the same year.
  • Of the pacifist which refused to work in the industry of the armament of war
  • Of the representatives of the French Extreme-right-hand side who sympathized with the German army or the ideology Nazi.

With the signature of the Armistice of June 22nd, 1940 between France and Germany, the area where the camp was located belonged to the free Zone managed by the government of Régime of Vichy, and the camp passes under civil authority.

The military commander who had been named by the preceding government, before transmitting the authority, burned the files and let the Spanish republican prisoners escape and disappear among the French population. On another side, once the burned files, many ex-prisoners had great difficulties at the end of the war to obtain compensations which were due for them to be interned.

700 of these prisoners, retained because of their nationality or their affinities with the Nazi regime, were released between on August 21st - date of arrival in Gurs of the commission of inspection sent by the German government - and October.

Coming from Belgium

  • Jewish : At starting from May 10th, 1940, fifty convoys of families, for the pluspart Jewish, off-set towards the France by the Germans after the occupation of the Belgium.

Coming from the Netherlands

  • the first quota arrived at Gurs on May 21st, 1940, eleven days after the German government had begun its Western countryside by the invasion from the Netherlands.

Coming from other countries occupied by Reich

  • Of the citizens of countries which were in the orbit of Reich, such as Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Italy or the Poland.

Coming from Germany

  • Of the German Jews off-set by the S from Germany after the Armistice of 1940.

the most painful period of the camp was held during October 1940. Gauleiter Wagner (governor) Nazi of the area of Baden in Germany had just been also named Gauleiter of the close French area, Alsace. There were with the country of Bade some 7.500 Jews, of the women for the majority, as well as children and elderly, given that the young men or of Middle Age were already flee of Germany or had disappeared in the concentration camps Nazis.

So Gauleiter could was informed by the Vichy government that there was in free Zone camps which could receive them, and on October 25th, 1940, it decided to evacuate the Jews of Baden (between 6.500 and 7.500 following sources) with Gurs during an operation called operation Burckel , maintaining under the French administration. The living conditions were very difficult and during the year when they remained with the camp, more than one thousand of them died, victims of diseases, more particularly of the Typhus and the Dysenterie.

Among those which arrived at the camp, approximately 700 could flee towards Spain to join North Africa or the United States (like Hannah Arendt), and nearly 2.000 finally visas obtained which enabled them to emigrate regularly worms of other countries.

Among those which remained, several thousands, the men in better physical condition were incorporated in the battalions of French work.

The deportation of the German Jews with Gurs in October 1940 constitutes a single case. On a side, it is about the single deportation of Jews realized towards the west of Germany by the Nazi regime. Other, the Conference of Wannsee which specified the program of extermination of which it was made mention above, was held in January 1942.

The reasons for this deportation are not precisely known. Only exists the suspicion which it could have been a question of beginning the plan Madagascar , an initiative of Eichmann tending to transfer all the Jewish population from Europe in the island of the same name. If it were the case, this deportation would constitute the single known attempt at application of this plan, and the protests of the French government prevented such new initiatives.

Humanitarian organizations

Starting from December 20th, 1940, various organizations of help could bring their assistance: in addition to the Basque government in exile, stations of the Swiss Help settled in Gurs, as well as French Jewish organizations tolerated by the mode of Vichy and of the Protestant organizations like the Quakers, CIMADE and YMCA.

Although the camp was located in a zone where the inhabitants were in their large catholics majority, the presence of many republican combatants of the Guerre of Spain and many very hostile Communists to the clergy made that no catholic organization offered of assistance to the prisoners.

February 15th, 1941, was added the Œuvre of help to the children (Jewish organization), which installed a medical dispensary and obtained Vichy government the permission to make leave Gurs of many children, that it placed in hearths distributed on all France.

Life of the camp, from day to day

To flee of the camp was not difficult: the fences were not very solid and the monitoring was not very severe. But badly vêtues, without money nor knowledge of the language of the country, the people who fled were quickly caught up with and returned to the camp On their return, they were interned in a small island called the small island of “revolted”. In the event of repetition, they were sent in another camp But when an outside assistance was possible, the escape, in Spain or in a hiding place on the French soil, could succeed. They were 755 in this case.

Deportations towards the East

During his inspection of the camp of Gurs, the captain S Theodor Dannecker ordered on July 18th that the Jews would be ransférés towards the east of Europe. Between on August 6th, 1942 and on March 3rd, 1943, the 3907 Jews which were in Gurs were sent by convoys to the Camp of Drancy, close to Paris, and from there, were off-set in 6 convoys in Poland with the camp of Auschwitz where they all were almost exterminated.

Closing then reopening of the camp to the Release

The Authorities of Vichy close the camp in November 1943 definitively.

When the Germans withdrew zone, in front of progress of the allied invasion of France, the new French persons in charge interned in Gurs of the marked peasants of collaboration with the German occupants, as well as Spaniards who having found refuge in France and having fought in the French Résistance against the German occupation, then claimed to initiate an armed conflict on the Franco-Spanish border. As France did not wish to enter in conflict with Franco, one found during one short period such interned Spaniards with Gurs. There was also in a short way of the German prisoners of war.

Dismantling

The camp was dismantled in 1946, and fell into the lapse of memory. The hill gradually overlapped with a vegetation which cannot still absorb water which runs argillaceous ground. One can see some of the stones which formed the ways and the bases of the hutments, and that during certain summers of the groups of young people extract to highlight misery in which close to 64  000 people last food with one or the other time of the camp

The camp of Gurs today

In the area and the remainder of France, the name of camp of Gurs is like a cursed tomb stone inserted in the hill and of which little wants to remember. The Jewish organizations themselves remain suffocated by the little which they made to save the life of these interned Jews with Gurs, in waiting to be transferred towards the death camps, whereas the camp was always under the administration of the French government and that with a little money to suborn the French guards and the Spanish gendarmes of the very close border, a big number of Jews could have had the safe life, while passing by Spain then Portugal or North Africa.

The association and the Call of Gurs

In 1979, at the time to celebrate the 40e birthday of the creation of the camp, young people of the area started to give again life with the history of the camp forgotten during conferences to which they invited former internees. The movement found echo in the French, German and Spanish press; consequently the following year meets in Gurs June 20th and 21st a hundred former prisoners, coming from many countries, as of the people who had belonged to French resistance or of the survivors of death camps, giving rise to association the Friendly one of Gurs . They worked out the call of Gurs , of which arise from the words like: Gurs, symbol of the combat and the suffering of the people of Europe… Gurs, concentration camp, call to vigilance, the union, the action so that the man can live free and worthy . Since this date one celebrates with Gurs commemoration in which take part of organizations Jewish, of representatives of Baden, of ex-prisoners or their families, and of people many other nationalities which wants to express by their presence the obligation, which must pass from generation to generation, not to forget the criminal acts of the dictatorial modes which devastated Europe during the 20th century.

Actual position

In the camp, there exists a reconstitution of a triangular symbol of section, made planks of wood covered with waterproofed paperboard, testimony of these hundreds of roofs identical to this model which were the shelters of these prisoners. Monuments point out the camp of the Gursiens as were called the prisoners by the inhabitants of the close villages, and like the prisoners themselves ended up being called.

The cemetery

The rustic vegetation which hides the camp which was occupied by the small islands contrast with the peace of the large protected Jewish cemetery and nicely maintained by the German cities from which came the off-set German Jews.

The French association of the Jewish communities of the the Low-Pyrenees, which after the release of 1944 dealt with the maintenance of the cemetery, set up a monument with the memory of the victims. But the cemetery became year by year a little more forgotten. The mayor of Karlsruhe, informed of this irrefutable fact in 1957, took the initiative to make deal with by his commune the conservation of the cemetery, with the support of Jewish associations of Baden.

He made contact, so that they take part in the project, with the localities of Baden from where Jews had been off-set towards Gurs. The French State in its turn made gift of the cemetery for one 99 years duration to a higher authority of Jewish associations of Baden. Restored, the cemetery was reopened on March 26th, 1963. The German cities of Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Mannheim, Heidelberg, Pforzheim, Constancy and Weinheim ensure the economic survival of the cemetery.

Since 1985, there exists in the camp a memorial of the combatants of the Spanish civil war interned, and in the cemetery a separate space their was allotted. In 2000, the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge renovated in-depth the cemetery.

In database 1939-1945 1017 names of the died victims with Gurs primarily of the Jews of Bade and Palatinat.

Statistics of the camps of Gurs

Some famous prisoners

Among the prisoners of this camp, there was:

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