Camp des milles

OCTOBER 26th 2017

Camp des Milles, in the area of Aix-en-Provence, plays an important role in the sad history of French concentration camps during World War Two. It was born as a brick factory, but between 1939 and September 1942 its story changed. At first, people considered enemies of the French State were detained here, in particular Germans who escaped their country because they were persecuted by the Third Reich.

After the 1940 armistice and the establishment of the Vichy government, foreigners from camps in South-East France started to appear here among the prisoners, including those who fought in the Spanish civil war and Jews who were evicted from German regions. Between August and September 1942, instead, there were thousands of Jews even of French nationality (which they had lost as a result of the racial laws approved by Philippe Pétain’s government). Many of them were children and adolescents, who were briefly imprisoned here, waiting to be transferred to concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Rivesaltes.

All those who were imprisoned in Camp des Milles suffered the same terrible living conditions: freezing cold and unbearable heat, diseases, filth, undernourishment. Some of them committed suicide by jumping off high places even before knowing they were doomed to be taken to extermination camps, some of the windows have been deliberately left open in their memory.

All those who were imprisoned in Camp des Milles suffered the same terrible imprisonment conditions: freezing cold and unbearable heat, diseases, filt, undernourishment. Some of them committed suicide by jumping from high places even before knowing they were destined to be taken to extermination camps, some of the windows were deliberately left open in their memory.

Another particular feature is that many of the prisoners were distinguished figures: painters, writers, musicians, sculptors, architects, doctors (even Nobel prize-winning), teachers. Max Ernst, Golo Mann, Adolf Siebert, Max Schlesinger and Otto Meyerhof to name a few.