The Camp de Rivesaltes is a military camp in France (also called camp Joffre) located on the territory of the commune of Rivesaltes in Pyrénées-Orientales in the South of France. The camp was also used for interning several civil populations from 1939 to 2007. The darkest period of the camp was in 1942 when 2251 Jews, including 110 children of the Rivesaltes Camp were transferred via the Drancy internment camp to Auschwitz for being murdered.

[edit] The History of Camp Joffre in Rivesaltes

Southern France became a major haven for Jewish refugees attempting to flee to neutral countries, whether legally or illegally. In 1935, the commune of Rivesaltes, situated on a rail route and 40 km from the Spanish border, was considered as a strategic position for the french army. 5 km from the city of Rivesaltes, the army occupied 612 hectares between Rivesaltes and Salses, to construct a camp, which was originally intended as a military base.

[edit] Creation of the Camp (1938–1940)

commemorative stele for survivors of the retirada

[edit] The Spanish Republicans

In 1938, a few miles from Perpignan, four-fifths of the town of Rivesaltes and a fifth on the Salses is built the "Camp Joffre" military camp.

Following the Retirada, the Camp Joffre is envisaged to intern more than 15 000 Catalan refugees . It remains in draft form, although lower flow takes place (1939)

The 10 December 1940, the Defense offers 600 acres south of the camp, to bring together individuals expelled from Germany. The military camp then runs parallel to the civilian camps. > permuter

Three years later, it became the Camp Joffre In 1939, at the start of the second world war, the camp became a military transit base and in 1940 a refuge for Spanish refugees fleeing the Franco dictatorship

After the signing of the armistice, France was split into two and the « zone libre » in which the Pyrenees-Orientales was included, came under the administration of the Vichy government. It was at this point that the sad and sinister history of the camp Joffre began to unfold.

Gradually, the camp became a place of internment for families of gypsies, Jews and Spanish refugees. With a capacity of 8000, it was not long before the camp was overcrowded, families were separated, and conditions deteriorated enormously.

[edit] The Accommodation Center (1941–1942)

[edit] Spanish Prisoners and foreign Jews

French Police checking new inmates in the camp Pithiviers

When the first interned arrive on 14 January 1941 the status of the camp is not yet fixed. It was decided that this is a "accommodation center" for families. Initially planned for a maximum of 17 000 "hosts", it aligns 150 large barracks with a housing capacity of 10 000 individuals. The particularity of the place is to bring together families, but separating them in different barracks: there were barracks for men, others for women and children. On 31 May 1941, the camp has 6 475 internees from 16 nationalities, more than half from Spain, the Jewish Foreigners make up more than a third.

[edit] The Special Camp (1942) - the "Drancy of free zone"

France under German occupation (Nazis occupied the southern zone starting in November 1942 — Operation Case Anton). The green zone was under Italian administration.

French milice and resistants

August 26, 1942 at five o'clock in the morning operations began to collect Jews Aliens of the southern zone and ‘Centre national de rassemblement des Israélites’ of Rivesaltes.

They are installed in block J for Women and Children, F for men, (previously dedicated to workers) and K (reception, screening and sorting). It is planned for a total of 10 000 families composed of internees and 15 days. It includes the first 1 176 Jews already in the middle.

Convoys to Drancy go on August 11 (400 persons), August 23 (175 people), the September 1 (173), on September 4 (621 people), on September 14 (594 people), on September 21 (72 people), the September 28 (70 persons), October 5 (101 people) and October 20 (107 people).

Serge Klarsfeld notes that from September 4 to October 22, the camp of Rivesaltes played the role of Drancy in the free zone. " He was the camp meeting of all the Jews arrested in the "free zone" and the transit camp to Drancy for many of these Jews (about 1 700) ^[1].

In November 1942 in the context of the invasion of the South zone, German troops moved to Camp Joffre. Accordingly, the camp is closed on November 25. At that time, there were 277 staff members.

• For two years, the camp of Rivesaltes has approximately interned 21 000 individuals, of whom about 5 714 in special camp, 2 313 have joined Drancy, 2 251 were excluded by the screening committee. 215 internees died on the site, including 51 children of one year or less.

[edit] The guarded residence (1944–1946)

The German army leaves Rivesaltes on August 19, 1944.

While the military part of Rivesaltes camp resumes its original purpose, the Center has established residence monitored Rivesaltes (September 12, 1944). Concentrating on the island Q people interned under the treatment, the new camp has a maximum capacity of 1 080 internees.

The center continues to receive people from other European countries: the Spanish, interned for smuggling the border, ensuring the necessary work to secure the center. In January and March 1945 several hundreds of Soviet POW, ended there as well as others.

The dissolution of the center is decided December 10, 1945, and is completed in the early days of October 1946.

[edit] The prisoner of war Depot (1944–1948)

[edit] The German prisoners

The military authority transformed the camp in the Deposit No. 162 for prisoners of war. Consisting mostly of German and Italian soldiers, this camp counts less than 10 000 prisoners in October 1944 and around 6000 or 7000 men in May 1945. It closed on May 1, 1948. The prisoners worked extensively in the reconstruction of Roussillon, but between May 1945 and 1946, 412 German prisoners of war died in the camp.

[edit] The prison (1962)

[edit] La Guerre d'Algérie

Under the stiffening of the French state caused by the Algerian War, the latter intends to 1957 to create here a "internment camp". The Prefect is any more to dissuade the places that contain, in addition to the training center mainly populated by North Africans, a Professional Training Center for Military North Africans and young soldiers mobilized for war.

The project will not be complete but discretly, a prison was set up for people convicted for being supporters of the Algerian independence. 527 prisoners entered the center between March 9 and April 18, 1962.

[edit] The transit and rehabilitation camp (1962–1977)

[edit] The Harkis

Harkis is the generic term for Muslim Algerians serving as auxiliaries with the French Army, during the Algerian War from 1954 to 1962.

In June 1962, the "1st regiment of riflemen algériens" is based to the Camp Joffre. They took with them hundreds of civilians, women and children running away from the new independent Algeria. In October 1962, about 8000 Harkis staying at the transit and reclassification camp of Rivesaltes (including those from the camp of Larzac and Bourg-Lastic). In all, according to the calculations of Abderahmen Moumen, about 20 000 people will move here and pile up in 1962 and 1964. Stay varies according to the families a few days for some, years for others. The families considered "sunk" - terms of administrative employees at the time - are sent at the end of the year 1964 at the camp / host city of Saint-Maurice-l'Ardoise in the Gard (until 1975). A "village law" still hosts hundreds of families who are employed but not housing - Rivesaltes camp during the 1960s. In 1963, was also creates a forestry village in Rivesaltes for about 25 families of former subsidiary (or a hundred people). The next decade saw the bulk of the population moved to the HLM of Rearte, built in the city of Rivesaltes to end the situation of these families. Some will not be able to leave the camp until February 1977.

[edit] The Colonial auxiliaries

Other French Colonial Forces , Auxiliaries from Africa and French Indochina came, accompanied by civilians with the decolonization of the French colonial empire: from 1964 to 1966 about 600 Guineans arrived, and other former soldiers and their families coming from French Indochina.

[edit] The Immigration detention center (1986–2007)

Created in 1986, the administrative detention center was first made for Spanish nationals who enters illegally on the French territory. With more than a thousand arrest on the French territory in 1994, it is one of the largest detention centers in France. In 2007, the authorities moves the center.

[edit] The Rivesaltes memorial museum

Serge and Beate Klarsfeld

A commemorative stele for the Jewish victims of the Rivesaltes camp erected by the "sons and daughters of Jews deported from France". Unveiled on January 16, 1994.

The memorial museum project has its origins in the publication of the list of deported Jews and Jews who died in the camp of Rivesaltes, by Serge Klarsfeld in 1978 .

• In 1993, it publishes "The transfer of Jews from the camp of Rivesaltes and the Montpellier area towards the center of Drancy for deportation August 10, 1942

• On January 16, 1994, Serge Klarsfeld's association "Sons and daughters of deported Jews from France" erects a monument to the memory of 2313 Jews deported from the Rivesaltes camp to Auschwitz.

• December 2, 1995, installation of a monument in the memory of the Harkis.

• In 1997, the collective petition "To the living memory of the camp of Rivesaltes" signed by Simone Veil, Claude Simon, Edgar Morin and many citizens to protest against threats of destruction of the camp.

• In 1998, Christian Bourquin, new president of the General Council of the Pyrénées-Orientales opposes the destruction of the site and starts public consultations on the project.

• October 30, 1999, stele in the memory of the Spanish Republicans.

• 2000, inscription in the supplementary inventory of Monument historique by the Ministry of Culture ^[2].

• 2005 at the French Heritage Day, part of the camp is open for the first time to the public. Rudy Ricciotti, won the architectural competition.
• Robert Badinter agrees to sponsor the project.
• November 2005, the General Council acquired the F block of 42 hectares ^[3].

• January 21, 2009, deposit of the construction permit by the architect Rudy Ricciotti, work should start in 2010 and take two years ^[4][5].

[edit] Sources

1. ^ www.ahicf.com/ww2/actes/9klarsf.rtf
2. ^ http://www.culture.fr/fr/sections/regions/languedoc_roussillon/organisme/JEP-ORGS168639?typeSearch=SearchableTextagencies&=&=SearchWhere
3. ^ http://www.cg66.fr/culture/memorial/index.html
4. ^ http://www.batiweb.com/news/a.asp?ref=06010202&titre=L-architecte-Rudy-Ricciotti-construira-m%C3%A9morial-of-camp-RivesaltesthemeUrl&rub=&=
5. ^ http://www.cg66.com/culture/memorial/revue_presse/RP_avril_mai_08.pdf

[edit] Bibliography

• Anne Boitel, Le Camp de Rivesaltes 1941-1942, Presses Universitaires de Perpignan, Mare Nostrum, Perpignan, 2001.

• Joël Mettay, L’Archipel du mépris, Trabucaire, Perpignan, 2001.

• Abderamen Moumen, Entre histoire et mémoire. Les rapatriés d'Algérie. Dictionnaire bibliographique, Gandini, Nice, 2003.

• Denis Peschanski, La France des camps, Gallimard, Paris, 2002

[edit] See also

• Concentration camps in France
• Camp Gurs
• Camp Vernet

[edit] External links

• Lest We Forget: Rivesaltes Camp Joffre
• Camp of Rivesaltes