Internment,
transit, deportation
Robert
Mencherini Historian
In the early days of September 1939, the French government
decreed that Germans and Austrians living in France should
be interned. They had become “enemy subjects” since the
declaration of war between France and Germany, and many of
them had fled the Nazi regime were now living in
south-eastern France. In the 15th military region
(corresponding to what is now the
Provence-Alpes-Côte-d’Azur region), plus the Ardèche and
the Gard, their main internment camp was an old tile
factory south of Aix-en-Provence, on the edge of the small
village of Les Milles.
The factory, closed two years previously, belonged to the
Rastoin family and the Société des Tuileries de la
Méditerranée. It was served by the little station of Les
Milles, and consisted of one vast main building with three
floors, plus various outbuildings spread out over a site of
46,800 m2. Requisitioned at first before being leased to
the State, it was surrounded by barbed wire and arranged in
rough and ready manner by the soldiers of the 4th battalion
of the 156th regional regiment, sent over from Privas and
mostly Ardéchois in origin. With Captain Charles Goruchon
in command, these same soldiers then took on the
supervision and management of the camp until the defeat in
1940.
Born out of circumstance, the Camp des Milles gradually
took shape according to developments in the war and the
upheavals that took place in France at the time. From
September 1939 to the end of 1942, it served three distinct
and successive functions. It was used first under the Third
Republic as an internment camp for those considered “enemy
subjects” during the hostilities; then, in the autumn of
1940, under the Vichy government, it became an internment
and transit camp for “undesirables” foreigners wanting to
leave France. Later on, from August to September 1942, it
was an assembly point for those Jews – men, women and
children – considered foreigners and delivered to the
Germans by the French authorities with a view to their
deportation to the extermination camps.
Read an
excerpt from the text by
Angelika Gausmann.
Read
an excerpt from the text by Olivier
Lalieu.
Read
an excerpt from the text by Atelier Novembre.
See a preview of the book. (Flash sequence)
Memory
of the Camp des Milles 1939-1942
Photographs
Yves
Jeanmougin
Texts
Robert
Mencherini
Angelika Gausmann
Olivier Lalieu
Atelier Novembre
Preface by
Alain
Chouraqui
Photos published in this book were taken between 2008 and
2012.
Hardcover book / 27 x 27 cm in size / 240 pages /
360 illustrations in both b & w and colour
Métamorphoses / Le Bec en l’air (2013)
ISBN 978-2-916073-97-2
29
€
Also available in French:
Mémoire du camp des Milles
1939-1942
Edition produced in
partnership with:
and with the help of:
This book is available at the Camp des Milles Memorial
Site,
in bookshops or directly from:
Métamorphoses
Friche la Belle de Mai 41 rue
Jobin 13003 Marseille / France
Download the
order form
meta@metamorphoses-arts.com
Robert
Mencherini Historian, honorary university professor
of contemporary history, Robert Mencherini is specialist in
political and social history, the history of the
Resistance, Vichy and the workers’ movement. He is a member
of both the Scientific Council and the board of the Camp
des Milles Foundation – Memory and Education, as well as a
researcher working in the mixed research unit of the
TELEMME (Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l’homme /
Université de Provence). One work stands out in his
prolific output, a tetralogy entitled
Midi rouge,
ombres et lumières, Une histoire politique et sociale de
Marseille et des Bouches-du-Rhône de 1930 à 1950,
Éditions Syllepse (2004, 2009, 2011, 2013).