Gurs Internment Camp

Gurs internment camp was an internment camp and prisoner of war camp constructed in 1939 in Gurs, a site in southwestern France, not far from Pau. The camp was originally set up by the French government after the fall of Catalonia at the end of the Spanish Civil War to control those who fled Spain out of fear of retaliation from Francisco Franco's regime. At the start of World War II, the French government interned 4,000 German Jews as "enemy aliens," along with French socialists political leaders and those who opposed the war with Germany.

 

After the Vichy government signed an armistice with the Nazis in 1940, it became an Internment camp for mainly German Jews, as well as people considered dangerous by the government. After France's liberation, Gurs housed German prisoners of war and French collaborators. Before its final closure in 1946, the camp held former Spanish Republican fighters who participated in the Resistance against the German occupation, because their stated intention of opposing the fascist dictatorship imposed by Franco made them threatening in the eyes of the Allies.

 

 

The camp measured about 1.4 km (0.87 mi) in length and 200 m (220 yd) in width, an area of 28 ha (69 acres). The only street spanned the length of the camp. Both sides of the street were surrounded by parcels of 200 m (220 yd) by 100 m (110 yd), named îlots. There were seven îlots on one side and six on the other. The parcels were separated from the street and from each other by wire fences. The fences were doubled in the back part of the parcels, forming a passageway in which the exterior guards circulated. In each parcel stood about 30 cabins; there were 382 cabins altogether. 

 

This particular type of cabin had been invented for the French army during the First World War; they had been built close to the front but outside the range of the enemy artillery, and they served to accommodate soldiers during the few days when the soldiers arrived at their barracks and awaited their trench assignment. They were assembled from thin planks of wood and covered with tarred fabric, all identical in construction and size. They were not provided with windows or other insulation. They did not offer protection from the cold, and the tarred fabric soon began to deteriorate, allowing rainwater to enter the cabins. Toilets were nonexistent, and residents slept on sacks of straw placed on the floor. Despite the fact that each cabin had an area of only 25 m2 (270 sq ft), each cabin had to lodge up to 60 people during times of peak occupancy.

 

Food was scarce and poor in quality; there was no sanitation, running water, or plumbing. The camp had poor drainage. The area, due to its proximity to the Atlantic Ocean, receives a great deal of rain, which made the clay campgrounds permanently muddy. The inmates made paths with the few stones they could find in a vain attempt to keep the mud in check. Pieces of wire that had been stripped of their barbs were placed between the cabins and the toilets and used by the refugees like the railing of a staircase, to maintain balance on the unsteady ground.

In each îlot there were rudimentary toilets, not very different from the sort of troughs that would be used to feed animals. 

 

There was also a platform about 2 m (6 ft 7 in) high, which one climbed using steps, and upon which were built additional toilets. Under the platform there were large tubs that collected excrement. Once they were full they were transported out of the camp in carts.

One feature of the camp was that the wire fences were only two metres high; they were not electrified, and they did not have lookout towers filled with guards pointing their machine guns at the internees. The atmosphere was radically different from an extermination camp: there were no executions (murders) or displays of sadism on the part of the guards.

 

Around the camp there were small buildings that housed the administration and the guard corps. The administration and care of the camp was conducted under military auspices until the fall of 1940, when a civil administration was installed by the Vichy regime.

 

Those arriving from Spain were grouped into four categories:

 

Brigadists

They had belonged to the International Brigades fighting for the Second Spanish Republic. Because of their nationalities (German, Austrian, Czech, Russians etc.) it was not possible for them to return to their countries of origin. Some managed to flee and many others ended up enlisting in the French Foreign Legion.

 

Basques

They were gudaris (Basque nationalists and other Basque Government battalions) who had escaped from the siege of Santander and, transferred by sea to the Republican side, had continued fighting outside of their homeland. Due to the proximity of Gurs to their homeland, practically all managed to find local backing that permitted them to abandon the camp and find work and refuge in France.

 

Airmen

They were members of the ground personnel of the Republican air force. Possessing a mechanical trade, it was easy for them to find French businessmen who gave them work, allowing them to leave the camp.

 

Spaniards

They were farmers and had trades that were in low demand. They had no one in France who was interested in them. They were a burden for the French government and therefore they were encouraged, in agreement with the Francoist government, 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.

From 1939 to the autumn of 1940, the language that dominated in the camp was Spanish. The inmates created an orchestra and constructed a sports field. On July 14, 1939, Bastille Day, the 17,000 internees of Spanish origin arranged themselves in military formation in the sports field and sang La Marseillaise, followed by sports presentations and choral and instrumental concerts.

The German members of the International Brigade edited a newspaper in German by the name of "Lagerstimme K.Z. Gurs" of which there were more than 100 editions. The inhabitants of neighboring places could come to the camp and sell food to the inmates. For a time, the commander permitted some imprisoned women to rent a horse and cart and let them leave to camp to buy provisions more economically. There was a postal service and visits were also occasionally permitted.

 

"Undesirables"

At the start of World War II, the French government decided to use the camp also to house ordinary prisoners and citizens of enemy countries. The first contingent of these arrived at Gurs May 21, 1940, eleven days after the German government initiated its western campaign with the invasion of the Netherlands. To the Spaniards and Brigadists who still remained in the camp, were added:

 

Germans who were found in France, without regard to ethnicity or political orientation, as foreign citizens of an enemy power. Among them stands out a significant number of German Jews who had fled the Nazi regime.

 

Citizens of countries who were in the orbit of the Reich, like Austria, Czecho-Slovakia, Fascist Italy, or Poland.

 

French activists of the left (trade unionists, socialists, anarchists, and especially, communists), who were considered dangerous under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact; the first of these arrived June 21, 1940, and the majority were relocated in other camps before the end of the year.

pacifists who refused to work in the war industry.

 

Representatives of the French extreme right who sympathized with the Nazi regime.

ordinary prisoners evacuated from prisons in the north of the country ahead of the German advance.

 

Prisoners waiting trial for common crimes.

 

In contrast to the Spaniards, for whom there was generally sympathy, the internees from the second waves were known as "les indésirables", the undesirables.

 

Regime de Vichy

With the armistice between France and Germany in June 1940, the region in which the camp was situated formed part of the territory governed by the Vichy government, passing over to the civil authority. The military commander, before turning over command, burned the records in order to make it difficult for the new French government to locate and persecute many of the inmates who, informed of the change in command, had fled, disappearing among the French population who gave them shelter. After the war, the destruction of the records later made it difficult for many ex-prisoners to claim the compensation that was due to them for having been incarcerated.[5]

Seven hundred of the prisoners, interned on account of their nationality or for being sympathetic to the Nazi regime, were released between August 21—the date of the arrival of the inspection commission sent by the German government to Gurs—and October. 

 

The Vichy government incarcerated:

political dissidents.

Jews who were not French nationals, also German Jews who escaped to France in 1930s

German Jews deported by the SS from Germany.

persons who had illegally crossed the border of the zone occupied by the Germans.

Spaniards fleeing Francoist Spain.

Spaniards who had already been in the camp, released in the fall of 1940, roamed around the country unemployed.

Spaniards coming from other camps that had been condemned for being uninhabitable or due to their scarce contingent.

stateless persons.

people involved in prostitution

homosexuals.

Gypsies.

indigents.

Jews deported from Baden

 

 

The most painful period in the camp's history began in October 1940. The Nazi Gauleiter ("governor") from the Baden region of Germany had also been named Gauleiter of the neighboring French region of Alsace. In Baden resided some 7,500 Jews; they were mainly women, children, and the elderly, given that the young and middle-aged men had emigrated (official Nazi policy, overseen and made more efficient by Adolf Eichmann) or had gone to the Nazi concentration camps.

 

The Gauleiter received word that the camp at Gurs was mostly empty, and on October 25, 1940, it was decided to evacuate the Jews from Baden (between 6,500 and 7,500) to Gurs as part of Operation Wagner-Bürckel. There, they remained locked up under French administration. The living conditions were difficult, and illness rife, especially typhus and dysentery.

 

The deportation of the German Jews to Gurs in October 1940 is a unique case in the history of the Holocaust. On one hand, it deals with the only deportation of Jews carried out toward the west of Germany by the Nazi regime. On the other hand, the Wannsee conference in which the above-mentioned extermination program was delineated, did not take place until January 1942.

 

Aid organizations

Beginning December 20, 1940, various humanitarian aid organizations intervened to lend their services: in addition to the Basque government in exile, posts were set up in Gurs belonging to the Swiss Humanitarian Aid Unit, Jewish French organizations tolerated by the Vichy regime, and Protestant organizations such as the Quakers, CIMADE, and the YMCA. Despite the fact that the camp was situated in a region where the great majority of the population was Catholic, not one Catholic organization offered its help to the inmates. 

 

On February 15, 1941, the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (Children's Aid Society) installed a medical post and obtained permission to take numerous children away from Gurs, who would be housed in private homes throughout France.