LES MILLES CAMP
The only major French internment and deportation camp that is still intact and open to the public
LEARN FROM OUR PAST FOR TODAY AND FOR TOMORROW.
LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
A Memorial Site supported by the greater bearers of Memory
Contents
> Les Milles Camp: 1939-1942
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Simone Veil,
• An internment and deportation camp
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Auschwitz déportee Honorary President of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah
• History, stories of a camp
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• The Jewish children and teenagers deported from Les Milles
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• Vichy offers to deport children
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• The Righteous
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• Les Milles and its “satellites”
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• Creating to resist
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• Letter to Berthold Maïmann
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• Mother-child administrative files
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• Testimonials on deportations from Les Milles Camp
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• “Testament of Auschwitz”
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Serge Klarsfeld, President of the Association of Friends of the Foundation of Les Milles Camp
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The purpose of the creation of this memorial, (...) is to ensure that young people, the schoolchildren that come, realise what happens when you give in to a fascination for extremes. People must truly be warned, and I think that being warned when you are young (...) is extremely important.
Elie Wiesel, Auschwitz déportee Nobel Peace Prize recipient
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This is a place of memory, and I have spent my life celebrating memory. But a museum alone is not enough, we need a place of transmission... And this is urgent... At the time of the camp, there was so much hatred. Today, hatred has taken on other faces, but it is still the same hatred. (...) I will do everything I can to help the promoters of the project. This must now become a place of transmission. Everyone who enters here must leave changed, at least more aware. And of course, I will do whatever is possible to help. There are resources to mobilise, energies to put to work. I am convinced that Les Milles Camp will be an important site, very important for centuries to come..
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It was with great emotion that I visited Les Milles Camp and contemplated the paintings, thinking about the suffering, but also the courage of those who painted them, before disappearing into the “Night and the Fog”. We must remember them, preserve their last works, which are a message for us. Over 2,000 Jews were deported from Les Milles Camp to Auschwitz, where most of them died. There are still many memories here, and also an artistic testimony. We must think of them out of loyalty, but also for the women and children who were among them. We must learn their lessons so that this never happens again. That is why our project is to transform this abandoned factory, which will soon become a place of history but also of education. So that we don’t forget.
> Les Milles Camp Memorial Site A memorial site to prolong their memories
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• For a shared memory, living and useful for all
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• Thirty years of fighting against forgetfulness and ignorance
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• An unique site in France to learn from our past
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• An original museum presentation
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• A visit in three sections
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• National Education and the Memorial Site of Les Milles Camp: complementarities
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• The words of children and teenagers today
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> Iconography An exceptional site in terms of its state of conservation
> Face of a woman. Wall drawing (anonymous)
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• Exhibition Room
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• Traces found in the internment building
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• “Les Milles en feu” (“Les Milles on Fire”) by Hans Bellmer
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• Authentic sites - A rich museum presentation
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Exhibitions
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Partners
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Access map / Contacts
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Les Milles Camp 1939-1942
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Between 1939 and 1942, over 10,000 people were interned in this building under increasingly harsh conditions. They were refugees in France, most of them fleeing totalitarianism, fanaticism and persecution in Europe.
An internment and deportation camp
The history of Les Milles Camp bears witness to the spiral of successive xenophobic, ideological, and anti-Semitic intolerances that led to the deportation of over 2,000 Jewish men, women, and children from Les Milles Camp to the Auschwitz extermination camp, via Drancy and Rivesaltes. They were among the 10,000 Jews from in the so-called “free” zone who, even before the zone was occupied, were handed over to the Nazis by the Vichy government, then murdered as part of the “Final Solution”. In the face of racism, cowardice and indifference, the resistance at Les Milles and elsewhere saved the honour of France and all of humanity. The victims hoped that we would remember in order to illuminate our vigilance. For today and tomorrow.
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If the echo of their voices weakens, we shall perish.
Paul Eluard
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
History, stories of a camp
August and September 1942: a deportation campfor Jews
September 1939 to June 1940: a camp for “enemy subjects”
July 1940 to July 1942: a camp for “undesirables”
The history of the camp began under France’s 3rd Republic, at the start of World War II, when the French government made the decision to detain citizens of the Reich, even authentic anti-Fascists who had long before fled the Nazism long raging in their country to seek refuge in France. Paradoxically and tragically considered as “enemy subjects”, internees were victims of a mixture of xenophobia, absurdity, and the prevailing administrative disorder and lived in very precarious conditions. In the southeast, these foreigners were interned in the abandoned tile factory of Les Milles. This industrial building became an internment camp under French military command.
In June of 1940, a second period began with France’s defeat and the signing of the armistice. This is when the “Train from Les Milles” episode occurred, popularized by the film of Sébastien Grall. Starting in July, under the Vichy regime, the camp quickly became overcrowded (3,500 prisoners at one time in June 1940). During this period, foreigners from camps in the southwest were notably transferred to Les Milles, and in particular veterans of the International Brigades of Spain as well as Jewsexpelled from the Palatinate, Württemberg, and Baden regions. Starting in November 1940, the camp was placed under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior and became the only transit camp in France for overseas emigration, regular or illegal transit with the help of private individuals, organisations and smugglers, both local and international. Over time, the conditions of internment deteriorated:,vermin, illness, overcrowding, lack of food, etc. The prisoner is sad His song is silent His hands are tired His mouth does not speak His eyes seek in the distance His soul thirsts. >
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A third period corresponds to the months of August and September 1942, with the deportation of over 2,000 Jewish men, women, and children to Auschwitz via Drancy or Rivesaltes. Vichy agreed to turn over 10,000 Jews from the so-called “free” zone to Germany. At the beginning of July 1942, Laval offered to include children under the age of sixteen in the deportations. On August 3rd, the camp was locked down. Jewish women and children from the region were directed to Les Milles to join the other prisoners before being deported. There was no exception for Jewish political refugees or foreigners who had served in the French army. And one hundred children over the age of one year were deported. In total, five convoys were organised. In response, courageous men and women helped the prisoners and deportees.
> Photo of the internment period
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What was particularly painful was the sight of small children. For strict orders were given at the last minute so that all children over the age of 2 had to leave with their parents… Little tiny children, stumbling with fatigue in the night and in the cold, crying with hunger… poor little kids, 5 or 6 years old, bravely trying to carry a bundle as big as they were, then falling down with sleep and rolling on the ground with their packages – all shivering in the night-time dew; young fathers and mothers crying silently at their powerlessness in the face of their children’s suffering; then the order was given to leave the courtyard and head for the train.
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> Jupp Winter: “Group of men walking in the camp with a military guard and self-portrait representing Jupp Winter”
All these events occurred even before the German occupation of the southern zone (November 11, 1942). After the month of September 1942, the camp, which remained a transit centre, muddled along: its last few occupants left its brick walls in December 1942.
> Les Milles Camp Tile Factory, author unknown
Pastor Henri Manen Chaplain at the Camp “Righteous among the Nations”, describing the convoy of September 2, 1942
Song of the Prisoner, 1939,, Peter Lipman-Wulf (prisoner at Les Milles) 7
LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Jewish children and teenagers deported from Les Milles*
> Little girls imprisoned a the Hôtel Bompard (Marseille) before their transfer and deportation to Les Milles Camp
Les Milles Camp : a “Vel d’Hiv Roundup of the South” before the German occupation
Abraham Ajgengold Golda Ajgengold Jacques Altmann Marie Altmann Moïse Altmann Jeannot Ament Benny Appel Friedel Baum Bertha Becher Jacques Becher Rachel Becher Margit Blau Werner Blau Jankiel Bojm Bernhard Bornstein Ralph Brill Myriam Burstyn Maria Dymenbaum Frieda Engel Renate Falk Gesis Feist Clara Fullenbaum Edmond Gamiel Eugénie Gasman Hélène Gelbard Max Gelbard Paulette Gelbard Anna Goldberg Cyrille Goldberg Frana Goldberg Isaac Goldberg Maria Goldberg
Rachela Goldberg Werner Goldschmidt Martin Grunwald Markus Hendler Arnold Hirsch Helga Hirsch Adolf Jeruchemson Hélène Jeruchemson Ernst Joseph Hans Kahn Daniel Kaminsky Noémie Kaminsky Werner Kaufmann Marion Kleinkopf Hans Krauss Dora Kressel Liane Krochmal Renate Krochmal Siegfried Krochmal Hélène Kupfer Noémie Laub Roger Lenziki Bertha Leufer Helmut Levy Rafaël Lewin Gerti Licht Kurt Linker Bernard Linker Elfride Lion Adolf Lipka Génia Lipka Manfred Maier Hedwig Markey
Hélène Marxsohn Georg Mass Alice May Régine Mescz Nathan Nabel Georges Neugass Erica Neustadt Anna Oesterreicher Abraham Oszekowski Ernst Ottinger Gisèle Rosner Naftali Rosner Rachel Rosner Karl Rothschild Hilda Safran Suzy Schaechter Jürgen Schild Chana Siegel Isaac Strumer Alfred Suss Deborah Treff Charles Uhr Erwin Uhr Ellie Vistave Otto Wertheimer Robert Wynberg Louis Wolf Israël Zeidelman Maurice Zeidelman Edwin Zwirn Simone Zwirn Willy Zwirn
* List of the names of Jewish children and teenagers deported from Les Milles in August and September 1942. The youngest was one year old. Sources : Serge Klarsfeld, Doris Obschernitzki, FCM/Mémorial de la Sh oah
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Vichy offers to deport children
IV J/SA 225 a Paris, le 6/7/1942 Dan / Bir Urgent ! Présenter immédiatement. A l’Office Central de Sécurité de Reich IV B 4
> Extract from the local press publishing the decree calling for the internment of “enemy” nationals at Les Milles Camp (1940)
Berlin Objet : Evacuation des Juifs de France. Référence : Entretien avec le S.S. Obersturmbannführer Eichmann et le S.S. Hauptsturmführer Dannecker le 1.7, 1942 à Paris. Les négociations avec le gouvernement français ont donné entre temps les résultats suivants : L’ensemble des Juifs apatrides de zone occupée et de zone non occupée seront tenus prêts à notre disposition en vue de leur évacuation.
> Letter sent to the OSE (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants - Organization to Save the Children) to try and save two children imprisoned at Les Milles Camp; letter intercepted by the administration
Le Président Laval a proposé que, lors de l’évacuation Le Président Laval proposé de l’évacuation de familles juives dea la zoneque, non lors occupée, les enfants de moins de familles juives de la zone non occupée, les enfants de moins de de 1616ans soient emmenés eux aussi. Quant aux enfants juifs qui ans soient emmenés eux aussi. Quant aux enfants juifs qui resteraient zoneoccupée, occupée, la question ne l’intéresse pas. resteraient en en zone la question ne l’intéresse pas. Je demande donc une décision urgente par télex pour savoir si, par exemple à partir du quinzième convoi de Juifs partant de France, nous pouvons inclure également des enfants de moins de 16 ans. Pour finir, je fais remarquer qu’à ce jour, nous n’avons pu aborder que la question des Juifs apatrides ou étrangers pour faire du moins démarrer l’action. Dans la seconde phase nous passerons aux Juifs naturalisés après 1919 ou 1927 en France. Signé DANNECKER, S.S. Hauptsturmführer
> Document translated from the original German
> This gendarmerie report confirms that as of August 1942, the French authorities knew what fate awaited the Jews they turned over to the Germans
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
The Righteous
The “Righteous among the Nations” who helped prisoners at Les Milles Camp
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“ He who saves one life saves the entire universe Brave men and women helped the prisoners and deportees. Some are recognised by Israel as “Righteous among the Nations”: The concept of “Righteous among the Nations” is taken from Talmudic literature. Over the generations, it has been used to designate all non-Jewish people who demonstrate a positive, friendly relationship to Jews. The Yad Vashem Memorial (Jerusalem) grants the title of “Righteous among the Nations” to non-Jews who, during World War II and the Shoah, helped Jews who were in danger under circumstances that involved risks as extreme as being in danger of death, without seeking material or other advantages. There were thousands of rescuers, including those who remain unknown, whereas millions of Jews needed help during the German occupation or under the Vichy regime.
Father Cyrille ARGENTI, Edmond and Nelly BARTOLONI, Auguste and Marie-Jeanne BOYER, Mgr Marius CHALVE, André and Georgette DONNIER, Pastor Marc DONADILLE and Françoise DONADILLE, Pastor Charles GUILLON, Pastor Henri MANEN and Alice MANEN, Reverend Father Joseph Marie PERRIN, Abbot Fernand SINGERLÉ, Pastor Gaston VINCENT and his son Michel.
This incontestably demonstrates that, despite the unremitting tragedy that struck the Jewish people, there were men and women who did not remain passive but took risks to abide by the precept of “love thy neighbour as thyself”. The argument that Nazi terror had paralyzed all reactions is refuted by the wide variety of actions that thousands of people from all walks of life took to help Jews to escape the “Final Solution”.
> Father Marie-Benoît
> Pastor Charles Guillon
> Alice Manen
> Pastor Henri Manen
> Doctor André Donnier
> Georgette Donnier
> Edmond Bartoloni
> Father Cyrille Argenti
> Abbot Fernand Singerlé
> Father Joseph Marie Perrrin
> Auguste and Marie-Jeanne Boyer
> Mgr Marius Chalve
In doing so, the “Righteous among the Nations” not only saved the lives of Jews, but also human dignity and the honour of their fellow countrymen and women. A “Wall of Righteous Acts” presents the diversity of these acts and of their authors. It has been extended to “Righteous Acts” in genocidal crimes against the Armenians, Gypsies, and Tutsis. This Wall completes the “Reflective Section” of the visit to the internment building.
are constrained to order your gendarmes to look for Jews. However, “ You you may hint to them that they are not obliged to find them.
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Marc Donadille quoted in the file of the Righteous kept at Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem. > The “Wall of the Righteous”
> Pastor Marc and Françoise Donadille
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Les Milles Camp and its “Satellites”
Creating to resist
The “Galaxie of Les Milles”
Artists and intellectuals at Les Milles Camp Principal internment centres and areas of house arrest in the Basses-Alpes department, most connected to Les Milles Camp
Les Milles Camp and the principal Foreign Worker Groups in the Bouches-du-Rhône (1940 - 1942)
50 km
50 km
Saint-Vincent Les Forts
Saint-Rémy
Barcelonnette
Arles Miramas
Salins de Giraud
Allos
Aix-en-Provence
Sisteron
Bassin minier Gardanne - Fuveau Martigues Lavera Marseille Aubagne
Les Milles Camp Main Foreign Worker Groups (GTEs)
Three hotels in Marseille (Hôtel du Levant, Terminus des Ports and Bompard) where foreign women and children were held
Château-Arnoux Le Chaffaut Saint-Auban
Peyruis
Les Mées
REILLANNE
Volx Manosque
Monitored residence centres Housing Centres
Many internment sites in the region (GTEs and hotels) were connected to the Camp des Milles. Men and women, considered as foreigners, usually Jews and antifascists, were gathered together there.
Annot
Entrevaux
Bras d’Asse Moustiers
Castellanne
GREOUX
Prefecture Sub-prefecture
Saint-André
Forcalquier Oraison
La Ciotat > Maps drawn up under the scientific control of Robert Mencherini
Colmars Beauvezer
Thoard
One essential characteristic of Les Milles Camp lies in the scope and diversity of the prisoners’ artistic production despite the privations and lack of resources. This production was especially abundant during the first period of the camp, between 1939 and 1940. But it continued with variable intensity throughout the existence of the camp, until the summer of 1942. This profusion is undoubtedly due to the the presence of many artists and intellectuals, some of whom already had international reputations while others among the survivors were not recognised until after the war.
Concentration and internment centres for foreigners (1939-1941)
Ville
Areas of house arrest (1941, 1942 and 1943)
Foreign worker camps (702nd GTE)
Other internment centres existed in neighbouring departments, in Toulon, Alès, Loriol,Saint-Cyr, Vidauban, etc. > Max Ernst
All disciplines are involved: Painting and drawing, notably with Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer, Robert Liebknecht, Gustav Ehrlich aka “Gus”, Eric Isenburger, Ferdinand Springer, Werner Laves, Leo Marschütz, Franz Meyer, Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze aka “Wols”, Max Lingner and Karl Bodek; Literature with writers, poets, translators and critics such as Alfred Kantorowicz, Golo Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger, Franz Hessel and Friedrich Wolf; Music with the pianist and composer Erich Itor Kahn, the conductor Adolf Siebert, singers Ernst Mosbacher, Joseph Schmidt, Leo and Siegfried Kurzer, etc.; Theatre with actors, comedians, playwrights and directors such as Friedrich Schramm and Max Schlesinger; Sculpture with Peter Lipman-Wulf, etc. There were also architects (Konrad Wachsmann, etc.), university professors, Nobel Prize recipients, with Otto Meyerhof, Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1922, Thadeus Reichstein, Nobel Prize in 1950 for inventing cortisone, doctors, lawyers or journalists but also MPs and politicians rom Germany, Austria, Italy, etc.f Among these figureheads, many strove to pursue their work, influenced by the tragic, extraordinary circumstances of their imprisonment and by the setting of the tile factory. They gave free rein to their creativity, sometimes with humour or irony, to preserve their dignity, relieve their boredom, maintain their morale as well as that of their comrades; sometimes it was also to gain favour with a member of the administration. Courses and conferences were given; plays and operas were staged. The authorities had a relatively benevolent attitude. Official orders were sometimes placed, such as for the imposing murals for the guards’ refectory in 1940-41.
> “SOS” by Max Ernst
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
> Historical photos from the internment period
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Letter to Berthold Maïmann, prisoner at Les Milles Camp and deported to Auschwitz
Mother-child administrative files
This letter never reached Berthold Maïmann because he was in the 2nd deportation convoy that left Les Milles Camp for Auschwitz, via Drancy, on August 13, 1942. The letter was returned to the sender bearing the camp Postal Clerk’s stamp, meaning: “MOVED, ADDRESS UNKNOWN…”
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Eyewitness accounts of the deportations from Les Milles Camp
Monday August 10: a terrible day… all those gestures by poor fathers who, before their final deportation, caress the face of a son or daughter, as if trying to keep an imprint on their fingertips! Mothers screaming with despair and no one can hold back their tears… some women maintain a remarkable distinction… The wagons, black as hearses, wait in the rail siding. Surrounded by armed guards, human beings who had committed no crime, because they are Jewish, are turned over by my country, which had promised them asylum, into the hands of those who will be their executioners..
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Eyewitness account of Dieta Gallet
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Notebooks kept by Raymond Raoul Lambert, Director General of UGIF, who died in deportation with his wife and four children
… I was only 13 years old… We were arrested on the train by the militia and taken to Les Milles Camp where a large crowd was ahead of us… We slept on straw mats on the floor. The beams in the room were covered with bugs that attacked us at night… One day, my father, accompanied by a militiaman, came to kiss me for the last time… It seems that illness kept my parents from escaping through a tunnel.
On August 26, 1942, at 5 o’clock in the morning, several policemen stormed in (…). A young Polish female refugee jumped out the window… The Protestant Pastor (Manen), guaranteeing the authenticity of my baptismal certificate, got the camp authorities to take my name off the list of deportable prisoners (…). The next morning, the courtyard was empty, the train was still there (…). They ordered us to come down. A man in boots, dressed in black, who looked suspiciously like an SS… I think, the chief of police (…) of Marseille (…) a sort of riding crop in hand that he used to designate certain women (…). I managed to escape.
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We were some ten boys and girls between the ages of 15 and 18 whom the OSE hid on the roof of the camp in the evening just after the train left. We were also helped by the sisters of Our Lady of Sion..
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“Auschwitz Testament”
Eyewitness account of Elisabeth Steinitz refugee in Marseille
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Eyewitness account of Félicie Awerbuch
1939: Dachau-Antibes… Les Milles… deportation after having been stripped of our possessions by the Guards of the Mobile Reserve … The trip across Germany took eight to ten days, real torture (…). Upon our arrival in Upper Silesia, there were three deaths. Auschwitz… Gross Rosen, forty-five months in the camps. Eyewitness account of Oscar Lusting
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When I was imprisoned at Les Milles (in 1942), I witnessed a suicide.The figure of 50 marriages of convenience may not be too high. I wrote to two men I flirted with in Marseille. Neither of them came! My friend Dieta and I, we were hiding in an oven (…) under the floorboards.”
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Eyewitness account of Liselotte Karpfen
> A wagon, the Remembrance Wagonserves as a reminder of the functional link between Les Milles Camp and the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. The photograph was taken from the Tile Factory: witnesses reported that a mother had committed suicide with her children by jumping out of that window to escape deportation.
Arrested at Saint-Charles Station on August 26, 1942, two gendarmes on bicycles… Miserable rations, filth, fleas, bedbugs (…) theft of food… they ripped up the American visas. Deportees beaten with rifle butts (…). Saved thanks to a telegram from the legionnaire’s son.
We, the Jewish mothers, savagely separated from our little ones, on whom they had no pity, We, the old people, righteous of the holy communities, who died in the gas chambers uttering the name of the Eternal, We, the innocent, the little Daniels or Myriams, the little Maurices or Sarahs, smiling at the future that seemed made for our wonderment, We, the children, the brothers and sisters of our deceased, we who miraculously escaped the tragedy of arrest and deportation, but who never knew the joy of adolescence in the arms of our dear parents, We, the heroic defenders of the last ramparts of the Warsaw Ghetto, who chose to die fighting rather than being treated like animals and exterminated, And we, the last survivors of the Shoah, the last witnesses of Nazi barbarianism, who touched the depths of horror, and whose wounds have barely begun to heal,
We leave our wounded memory: To our young heirs of the March of the Living and the Voyages of Memory, as well as their disciples. You who have sought to follow the bloody itinerary that took the Jewish people to the extermination camps. We leave you our Memory, for you to transmit from generation to generation, so that no one forgets, so that no one doubts, so that no one can deny! We leave you our Memory, which we ourselves received under oath from our families and from friends murdered before our eyes. May our heirs remind Mankind of the exterminating madness of an unspeakable ideology against a people who sought nothing more than Peace! May they remain vigilant in the years and centuries to come, and yet not forget tolerance toward others! May the Memorial of Les Milles in Provence for which we have worked for so many years bring those who visit all the necessary educational aspects to keep hate at bay! May the flame of the collective Memory that we transmit to you before we reach the end of our journey protect you forever from another AUSCHWITZ!
Denise Toros-Marter Deported at age 16 President of the Association of Deportees of Auschwitz Marseille-Provence, Co-President of the Association of the Wagon of Remembrance and Memorial Site of Les Milles Camp
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We, the wandering souls of our 6 million martyrs, whose still warm ashes are dispersed across the sinister plains of Upper Silesia,
Prof. Simon (Yad Vashem) 20
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Les Milles Camp Memorial Site A site bearing witness to carry on the work of the eyewitnesses
The Les Milles Camp Memorial Site is one of the rare witness sites preserved in Europe that tells the tragic story of internment and deportation during World War II.
A civic beacon for today and for tomorrow
And for the first time at a remembrance site, multidisciplinary guides and keys for scientific understanding are provided to help increase vigilance and to react in time in the face of identity-based tensions and extremisms. The site resolutely focuses on teaching brotherhood and respect for others, rejecting the spiral of discrimination, anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia that threaten coexistence and civil peace.
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
For a shared memory, living and useful to all. Co-Presidents of the Association of the Memory-Wagon and the Memorial Site of Les Milles by Alain Chouraqui President of Les Milles Camp Foundation Memory and Education Director of research at the CNRS it is everyone’s responsibility to meet the “ Today difficult challenge of ensuring that mankind is able to learn from the past and to transform memoryreverence into memory-reference. For today and for tomorrow.
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Les Milles Camp is an important European place of remembrance. Unique in its state of conservation and the traces it has retained from the period, it is recognised as a historic monument by the Ministry of Culture and presented by the Ministry of Defence as one of the nine French places of national remembrance. The Memorial Site seeks to be a place of remembrance, but also a living space for education and culture, first and foremost for young people. And this memorial and educational project has benefited from the support of the most important eyewitnesses of the period such as Mrs. Simone Veil and important figures such as Serge Klarsfeld, Elie Wiesel, Robert Badinter and the late Jorge Semprun. 1 - Between 1939 and 1942, Les Milles Camp went through a tragic spiral of internment of foreigners and antifascists of 38 nationalities, in the end becoming an antechamber for Auschwitz, with the deportation of thousands of Jewish men, women, and children during the Shoah. And yet this site is not where the worst horrors occurred. It is a former tile factory, a place of everyday work, at the end of an ordinary road in a village near Aix-en-Provence. It is in everyday “ordinariness” that “ordinary” people can trigger the “extraordinary”, such as planned mass murder. It is also a place where men and women, unknown or famous, such as Max Ernst and Hans Bellmer, were able to resist dehumanisation through a concern for others or through artistic creation, many traces of which remain at the site. They managed to stand tall in the face of persecution. Today, this camp is the only major French internment and deportation camp that is intact and open to the public, and one of the rare such camps in all of Europe. 24
After three decades of fighting for its memory, this historic site was finally opened to the public on September 10, 2012. And it is highlighted by an original combination of several layout options: a history museum and a preserved place of memory, mais aussi un musée d’idées sur les résistibles engrenages vers le pire, an innovative “laboratory” in terms of its scientific content and its educational materials, and, lastly, a place of heritage and artistic culture. 2 - Housed in an impressive 15,000-m² structure built on 7 hectares (17 acres), the itinerary begins with a reminder of history based on a rich museum presentation and original iconography: the history of Les Milles Camp and of its European and global context, as well as the story of the people who played a role here. Thus informed of the history of the site, the visitor then comes to the vast internment spaces, which are presented as close as possible to the way they were at the time, with a minimalist museum environment: sleeping quarters, living areas, highlights (rescues, cultural activities, suicides, etc.), drawings and graffiti on the walls, etc. A “reflective space” that offers multidisciplinary scientific knowledge, which has been made accessible for the first time at a place of remembrance. The visitor thus receives keys for understanding the individual and collective processes that led – and which could again lead to genocidal horrors. The dangerous spiral develops over time, so it is important to learn how to read the dynamics, to make connections between occurrences that may seem isolated on a day-to-day basis, and thus to be able to react as soon as these processes begin.
> Denise Toros-Marter
> Sidney Chouraqui
The factors that support resistance are then highlighted. And the Reflective Section of the itinerary ends in front of a “Wall of Righteous Acts” that shows the variety of acts of resistance and rescue that are possible and the wide diversity of men and women who resemble us and who were able to react effectively, each in his own way. The visit to the main building continues with the permanent exhibit of a collection of hundreds of rare documents on the Jewish children deported from France, which Serge Klarsfeld has entrusted to our Foundation. Outside the tile factory, the itinerary ends with the Exhibition Room of prisoners’ mural paintings, followed by the moving Chemin des Déportés (Path of the Deportees), which the deportees took to the Wagon du Souvenir (Remembrance Wagon), installed at the very spot where they left for Auschwitz. Along with the visit itself, various activities are offered at the site: educational workshops, conferences and debates, a continuing education centre, etc. Cultural events are designed to complement the scientific approach by using artistic expression to as an attempt to use a sensitive approach to convey what has sometimes been called the “unspeakable” horror of genocide. 3 - The desired effect is not for the visitors especially the young - to leave the Memorial Site overwhelmed by the darkness of the persecutions, but rather that they become aware that, enlightened by this tragic past, each man and woman can mobilize their qualities of vigilance and resistance, and accept responsibility as one person facing another and as a citizen in society. From this point of view, the history of the Shoah, firmly rooted in the site, is a powerful indicator of a misdirected modernity but also of the universality of
> Lt Colonel Louis Monguilan
recurrent human mechanisms that combined in the extreme and are still at work today. This fundamental universalist approach enables us, on the site itself, to make illuminating comparisons with the genocidal crimes against the Armenians, the Gypsies, and the Tutsis in Rwanda. In a world marked by identity-based tensions, by racism and extremist temptations, we are thus able to assert a solid convergence of memories against any unhealthy competition of memories and, in a context of shattered frames of reference, to propose the memory of this experience of the worst in man as a strong, shared frame of reference. Academics, researchers, and experts have worked under the authority of a multidisciplinary, international Scientific Committee presided over by the Rector of the Aix-Marseille Academy to ensure the quality of the content exhibited. The research was conducted within the framework of permanent agreement with the University. Today, the Les Milles Camp Foundation for Memory and Education, a recognised public interest foundation, brings together all the concerned partners, whether they be public, private or as associations, and is in charge of managing and developing the Memorial Site. It is also continuing the difficult struggle against forgetting and ignorance that began thirty years ago by former resistance fighters, deportees, and their descendents. Today it is everyone’s responsibility to meet the difficult challenge of ensuring that mankind is able to learn from the past and to transform memoryreverence into memory-reference. For today and for tomorrow. 25
LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Thirty years of struggle against forgetting and ignorance - (1982-2012)
Today, the Foundation is in charge of managing and developing the Les Milles Camp Memorial Site, as well as activities such as welcoming the public, training, culture, research and international cooperation.
10 September 2012 Inauguration of the Memorial Site by Mr. JeanMarc Ayrault, Prime Minister, and Mr. Alain Chouraqui, President of the Foundation of Les Milles Camp for Memory and Education. Official opening to the public.
> Front page of Le Monde, July 16, 2006
> February 19, 2005
> Unveiling of the Path of the Deportees plaque - 1990
1993 Saved and restored, the “Mural Room” was classified as a Historic Monument. Opening it to the public was entrusted to the Ministry of Veterans Affairs and War Victims.
2002 à 2009 A Steering Committee founded the Association Memory of the Aix-Les-Milles Camp in 2002 and worked to design an ambitious memorial. The entire site (7 hectares/ 17 acres) was registered as a Historic Monument in 2004. The necessary financing, both public and private, was gathered (2006-2009) and the site was purchased with assistance from the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah. > January 19, 2009 > March 7, 2005
1942 to 1982 Nobody talked about Les Milles Camp in the region. But survivors and certain people involved, such as Pastor Manen (Righteous among the Nations who tells his story in his diary, The Bottom of the Abyss), and a few prisoners (such as Lion Feuchtwanger, The Devil in France, 1942) started to bear witness. Serge Klarsfeld worked on the names of the deportees from Les Milles. In 1979, a few academics from Aix-en-Provence, with Jacques Grandjonc, began research.
1982- 1983 Faced with the announcement of the destruction of the “Mural Room” of the former camp. former resistance fighters and deportees, the CRIF (Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions), and the municipality of Aix-en-Provence came together to educate the government: the room was protected by an emergency registration in the supplementary inventory of historic monuments. 26
1985 Inauguration of a commemorative stone and the birth of a Coordinating Committee for Safeguarding Les Milles Camp and the creation of a Memorial Museum of Deportation, Résistance, and Internment.
Depuis 2009 The “Foundation of Les Milles Camp – Memory and Education” was created in 2009 and was immediately recognised as a public interest foundation in a decree issued by the Prime Minister. It is managed by a large Board of Directors that represents the diversity of its public partners (the State and local authorities), private partners and associations, as well as qualified figureheads.
Under the patronage of the President of the Republic, this ceremony took place with a large ministerial delegation in attendance, including the Ministers of Education, Culture, and Communication, Higher Education and Research, and Deputy Ministers under the Minister of Defence in charge of Veterans’ Affairs, and under the Minister of Social Affairs and Health in charge of the disabled and the fight against exclusion. The main public and private institutions that support the Memorial Site were also represented. Over 2,000 national and local figureheads were in attendance, representing the civilian, military, and religious authorities, cultural, educational, university and humanitarian associations and institutions, people from the business and social worlds, the press, and the Jewish, Armenian, Gypsy and Muslim communities. Twenty-eight countries were represented by their ambassadors or other diplomats, aware of the European history of the site and the universal dimension of the project.
1992 After the inauguration of the Chemin des Déportés (Path of the Deportees) in 1990, a Wagon du Souvenir (Remembrance Wagon) was installed at the exact deportation site and contains a small exhibit from a school in Marseilles. Operation “Mémoire pour Demain” (Memory for Tomorrow) brings together several thousand students for debates, film showings, shows, exhibits, etc. That same year, a new primary school in Les Milles was named after Auguste Boyer, Righteous among the Nations and former camp guard.
> Inauguration of the Memorial Site
> Alain Chouraqui with the large ministerial delegation in attendance that day
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
A unique site in France to learn about our past HISTORY, MEMORY, EDUCATION, CULTURE
The Les Milles Camp Memorial Site strives to preserve and promote this exceptional historical and cultural heritage with its national, European, and international dimension, particularly for the new generations. Its educational and cultural action seeks to reinforce vigilance and citizen responsibility against racism, anti-Semitism, and all forms of fanaticism:
Welcoming the public and schools
• on the one hand, by relying on the memory and history of the Shoah and the genocidal crimes committed against the Armenians, Gypsies, and Tutsis, as well as the resistance to these crimes; • on the other, by taking advantage of scientific knowledge to understand the individual and collective processes that can lead to these crimes, for preventive purposes, but also the capacities that make it possible to oppose them.
(primary schools, middle schools, high schools)
Educational workshops
Artistic activities The missions of the Les Milles Camp Memorial Site
Conferences and debates
Resource centre
Research activities
> Historical Section: fate of some prisoners at Les Milles Camp
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Civic education centre
Continuing education
I hope that young people who enter this Memorial Site will not leave the same way. Considering that one enters history knowing nothing, when one leaves one will have to know what happened historically, but one must also be able to ask questions about human beings and how they can be two-sided. The side that can lead one to become an executioner and how, on the other side, one can become Righteous.
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The Les Milles Camp Memorial Site is one of the major projects of Marseille-Provence, European Capital of Culture 2013.
Pascal Chamassian National Secretary of the Coordinating Council of French Armenian Organisations
This site is recognised as a historic monument by the Minister of Culture and is presented by the Ministry of Defence as one of the nine French places of national remembrance.
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A link between the past and the present
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A visit in three sections
An original museum itinerary
The Memorial Site comprises three sections dedicated to knowledge, emotion, and reflection, the visitor will discover these in three steps, reinforced by several major elements:
GROUND FLOOR 1ST FLOOR
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2ND FLOOR OUTSIDE
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ACCESSIBLE TRACES
1 - A HISTORICAL SECTION
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> Historical explanation of the general European, national, and regional context of Les Milles Camp’s history. > Scientific information on the site, its history and its actors.
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Introductory film
2 - A MEMORIAL SECTION
HISTORICAL SECTION *
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> Public access to the historical locations used for internment and deportation, inside and around the main tile factory building. > Access to the traces left by the prisoners.
MEMORIAL SECTION* 5 6 7 8 9
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Rise of dangers in Europe The first two periods of Les Milles Camp The “Final Solution” and the third period of the camp
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”Die Katakombe”: a refuge for cultural life at the camp Rescuing the children Sleeping quarters for male prisoners Sleeping quarters for women and children Window of suicides Cone of vision over the spot from which the deportation convoys left Drawing of the heart: “Liberty, Life, Peace”.
3 - A REFLECTIVE SECTION > Area for reflection and personal involvement on individual and collective responsibility in the mechanisms that can lead to the worst and to possible forms of resistance. > Access to the conclusions of psycho-sociological experiments on passivity, peer pressure, blind acceptance of authority, stereotypes... bridges between yesterday and today. > Area dedicated to “righteous acts” of resistance and rescue.
REFLECTIVE SECTION** 11 12
Three steps from racism to genocide (immersive film) Wall of Righteous Acts
OTHER COMPONENTS OF THE VISIT ITINERARY 13
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National exhibit on deported children (Serge Klarsfeld) Exhibition Room of Mural Paintings Path of the Deportees to the convoys Remembrance Wagon on the very spot from which the deportation convoys left Commemorative stone
* The Mémorial of the Shoah is the exhibition curator for the historical and memorial sections. ** In partnership with IFEP (Aix-Marseille University)
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People need to be aware of the behaviour they must adopt to avoid letting it happen again. That is the goal I set from the start with the little association we have set up. Lt Colonel Louis Monguilan Resistance fighter deported to Mauthausen Co-President of the Association of the Memory-Wagon and the Memorial Site of Les Milles
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
1 - THE HISTORICAL SECTION
Historical presentation of Les Milles Camp and its context
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This part provides the public with historical knowledge that will enable them to grasp the meaning of the site. Unlike many other camps, Les Milles was not created ex nihilo. The visitor is in an internment camp housed in a factory. A series of stages dedicated to the contexts – regional, French, and European – surrounding this history help the visitor to situate the camp in its general history (the rise of Nazism, the War, Vichy,
Resistance, raids and camps around the region, etc.). The exhibition then focuses primarily on the history of the site and its actors (prisoners, deportees, authorities, the Righteous among the Nations, guards, humanitarian organisations, etc.) and the various phases of repression that led from the internment of citizens of the Reich to the deportation of Jews.
> In-depth information area: artists and intellectuals at Les Milles Camp (1939-1942)
> In-depth information area: “The Shoah, a genocide of universal relevance”
After the painful, pitiful, and deplorable defeat of 1940, I could not bear to see France occupied. I could not bear to see the triumph of the Nazis, who were racists, xenophobes, anti-Semitic and against the handicapped. And consequently, very quickly, I could not bear to stand idly by. Under these conditions, I decided to join General de Gaulle’s Free French Forces. And later, I landed in Normandy.
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Sidney Chouraqui Volunteer fighter of the Resistance Co-President of the Association of the Memory-Wagon and the Memorial-Site of Les Milles
> Historical Section – The “three periods of Les Milles Camp”
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
2 - THE MEMORIAL SECTION
Public access to preserved areas that were used for internment and deportation Inside the main building of the tile factory, a very discreet museum presentation brings out the evocative power of the premises that have been preserved in their original condition, and the traces left by the prisoners. A large outdoor area provides unity and consistency to the various historical and educational elements at the site.
The historical information gathered earlier by the visitors will enable them to grasp the full significance of the areas visited and to feel their emotional power. It will also enable them to understand their chronological history, for some of these areas had various uses during the different phases of internment.
> “Die Katakombe�, tile kiln used as a refuge for cultural life at the camp, from the name of an anti-establishment cabaret in Berlin before Nazism
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> Floor housing women and children prisoners
> Floor housing male prisoners
> A part of the ground floor where the elderly were housed
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
3 - THE REFLECTIVE SECTION
Understanding for tomorrow This third section uses the evocative power of this imposing site and the scientific work that has been done since the war to reinforce the visitor’s vigilance and responsibility toward the major, permanent human questions raised by the civilizational trauma of the Shoah – to which this site bears witness – and by other genocidal crimes against the Armenians, Gypsies, Tutsis and, more generally, by the dramas caused by authoritarianism and totalitarianism.
> On three screens, an immersive film presents the resistible spirals that can lead to genocide
Up to this point, the visitor has been confronted with the past and its emotional burden. With this next section, memory-reverence becomes memoryreference: the visitor is invited to move beyond the distance that separates us from the past to undertake a multidisciplinary reflection on the present and the future based on historical experience. Of course, all places of memory contribute to education, notably civics. But this section also seeks to be an additional, highly innovative reflective moment at this memorial site. Indeed, experience seems to show that emotions concerning the past, historical information, or rhetorical references to the “lessons of history” are not always enough to identify and combat the constantly renewed expressions of racism, anti-Semitism, fanaticism and intolerance. The goal is therefore to give the visitor a more intimate understanding of the dangerous situations and processes. It is also meant to produce a constructive intellectual reaction by going through the various stages of a chrono-thematic itinerary presenting material and results from a variety of approaches and disciplines along with history: sociology, psychosociology, political science, philosophy, etc.
> Excerpt from the panel summarising the steps toward the worst
Starting with the specific history of the site and the Shoah, the universal character of the elements presented is illustrated by the genocidal crimes against the Armenians, Gypsies, and Tutsis. From this perspective, three main topics of reflection were defined by the Steering Committee: the resistible spirals of intolerance; the drift from democracy to authoritarianism; and individual and collective responsibility in the face of mass crime. This reflective stage, in a direct extension of the knowledge obtained in the previous rooms, may be compared to an experimental station where, using various educational resources (films, audio archives, creation of scenarios, presentation of scientific results, miscellaneous interactive features, etc.), the visitor participates in dissecting the individual and collective mechanisms leading from ordinary hatred to crimes against humanity, but also from indifference to resistance. We are confronted with historical situations, but also postures, mindsets, and reflexes (passivity, refusal, submission, etc.) that we may be familiar with and for which we can now more precisely measure the social consequences, whether dangerous or positive. Against the spirals that can lead to the worst, there is the counterweight of countless “Righteous acts” that lead to resistance.
belly is still fertile that gave birth to the “The vile beast.
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> Circled person: August Landmesser, at the launch of a battleship in Hamburg, June 13, 1936, with Adolf Hitler in attendance.
Bertold Brecht
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
National exhibit on Jewish children deported from France
Other major components of the visit
The itinerary continues with the rich national exhibit produced by Serge Klarsfeld and the “Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France” Association: “1942-1944: 11,400 Jewish children deported from France to Auschwitz.” Serge Klarsfeld entrusted this major national exhibit to the Memorial Site. It is the fruit of a lifetime of research. It is an exceptional collection of rare documents, particularly moving at a site from which some 100 Jewish children were deported. It is set up as a permanent exhibit. English and German versions of the exhibit are also presented at the Memorial Site.
The visitor then reaches the outdoor areas of the camp, comprising of various Memorial stations and an exceptional Exhibition Room (former guards’ refectory) with murals painted by the prisoners. The visit ends with a walk down the Chemin des Déportés (Path of the Deportees), the path they took to the convoys, ending at the Wagon du Souvenir (Remembrance Wagon) on the very spot from which they left for deportation.
In addition to the itinerary, there are facilities for a wide variety of cultural, educational, and training activities, whether permanent or temporary: workshops, debates, conferences, concerts, theatrical or artistic presentations, screenings and readings, aimed at young people in particular. Partnerships have been established with major cultural organisations such as the Aix-en-Provence Opera Festival. A first large temporary exhibition at the end of 2013 will be dedicated to some of the major painters at Les Milles Camp: “Creating to resist. All of these events aim to expanding the visitor’s emotions, information, and reflections.
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> Annual forum "Women standing tall. Women in résistance”, one of the events organised at the large auditorium on the Memorial Site
We were so afraid that, when they started taking people to Les Milles, people, especially women, started jumping out of the second floor window, preferring to die rather than to be loaded into the wagons. (…) Imagining what was going to happen, it was a figment of the imagination. That didn’t even affect us. It was not going to be fun, what was awaiting us… But that they were going to exterminate us en masse, that was something we couldn’t have imagined. Manfred Katz Prisoner at Les Milles Camp Freed from a deportation train
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
National Education and the Memorial Site of Les Milles Camp: complementarities
An educational service > Four teachers from primary schools, middle schools, and high schools > Supervision by education inspectors
Specific support > Dedicated personnel, supervised mediators, and experienced volunteers
Pour quels niveaux ? > Primary schools > Middle schools > General, technological, and vocational high schools
For what courses ?
Schools are welcomed as part of their official programmes. The Ministry of Education is an ex officio member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation of Les Milles Camp - Memory and Education. A multidisciplinary, international Scientific Council, presided over by the Rector of the Aix-Marseille Academy, defined the content of the Memorial Site. It is made up of respected academics and experts, and is now the guarantor. Enhanced cooperation has been implemented by an agreement between the Foundation and Aix-Marseille University since the creation of a Multidisciplinary European Institute in March 2010 which notably deals with the effects of crises and destabilisation of rules, rights, and freedoms.
> History – geography > Civic education > Language mastery > Literature > Musical education > Arts > Philosophy > Languages > Innovative subject projects > Cross-disciplinary actions > Art History
The words of children and teenagers today Poem on the deportation of children There was no reason For children to be deported. Taken from their parents, Children, lost and in anguish, Climbed into the wagons. They left for the camp, Anxious and fearful. They had committed no crime But their only crime was being born Jewish Because of that, they had to perish. Their stomachs writhed with hunger Nothing could erase their or sorrow. Fatigue and typhus killed them one by one Death spared no one. The chambers never stopped gassing The blood never stopped flowing Thousands of lives sacrificed Hell alone reigned Children who died a painful death Innocents broken by fear. Excerpt from a project carried out by the students of a German class at Lycée Dumont d’Urville in Toulon
Actions > Educational workshops to delve deeper into the subject > Interactive activities for further information and involvement > An action under the Academic Training Plans > A partnership for class projects, annual workshops, cross-disciplinary exploration.
“We must preserve this historic site as testimony to the horror of these camps, while hoping that it will never happen again.”
“The walk from the camp to the wagon really hit me because we were walking in the footsteps of the deportees, men, women, and children.” Sébastien “This visit was very moving for me, it left a mark on my
(…) “Hell at the end of the rails. Life goes up in smoke. All this is not trivial. Nobody should forget.” (…) Pierre, Mélissa, Maud, Carmen and Marc
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Florence
Hajira, Sophia, Emilie
Resources > Documents to prepare for the visit > Educational documents to accompany the visit > A website for additional information and downloads
“We have to continue to seek information and to keep the memory alive so as to be aware of the evil mankind is capable of, and thus learn how to control that part we all have within us.”
mind and my worldview for a long time to come.” Léa
“I had talked to my father about it and he said that it was a period we should forget. I asked him what they had against the Jews; he said that the Germans wanted to keep the best…” Ronan
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Iconography
An exceptional site in terms of its state of conservation
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> One of the many fragile traces found on the walls of the Camp
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Exhibition room
> Guards’ refectory: “The Banquet of Nations”, attributed to Karl Bodek, deported from Les Milles and died in Auschwitz
More than 400 works were produced at Les Milles Camp. The imprisoned artists represented the main currents of the early 20th century. They left their mark on the history of Les Milles Camp and its memory. Portraits of men and women as well as some graffiti and hundreds of inscriptions were found on the walls of the camp and inventoried. These traces, these memories, were found by archaeologists and comprised the first work project at the Memorial Site. “Freedom, life, peace,” a small inscription in a mural, rings in our ears like a derisory and yet necessary plea. These traces are so many touching testimonials that the walls of the Memorial Site give us today.
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Exhibition room
> Farm scenes. The slogan was used to illustrate an official portrait of PĂŠtain, but it also sounds like a plea from the prisoners
> Ironic drawing by prisoners who did not have enough to eat
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Traces found in the internment building
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> Several swastikas were found, dating from the camp period, but also more recently. “They have been preserved as an indicator of the evil whose embers were not extinguished along with Nazism.�
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
> Trace on the wall called “letter to Esther”, written before deportation: “Dear Esther, I love your…”
> “Woman at a piano”?
> “Commedia dell’arte masks”
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“Les Milles on Fire” by Hans Bellmer
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Authentic sites – A rich museum presentation
> Floor housing women and children inmates
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> Sculptures by Peter Lipman-Wulf produced at Les Milles Camp
> Model of the Camp
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> Third period at the camp – In the back, a film on “The Resistance and persecution in Provence
> Auschwitz deportee uniform (Denise Toros-Marter)
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Not only must we not forget, we must also be ready to react in case something happens, wherever it may be.
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Georges Wojakowski Eyewitness of internment at Les Milles Camp
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> Reflective Section: panel summing up the resistible spirals that can lead to the worst
> The “timeline” in the Historical Section: the “rise of danger”
> The Remembrance Wagon
> Reflective Section (first room)
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LES MILLES CAMP MEMORIAL SITE
Exhibitions HISTORICAL AND MEMORIAL SECTIONS EXHIBITION CURATOR: The Shoah Memorial is the general exhibition curator for the historical and memorial sections, bringing together many eyewitness accounts and providing documentation gathered during research undertaken around the world with many institutions and private individuals. MUSEOGRAPHY: Pascal Payeur GRAPHISM: Christine Mathieu
REFLECTIVE SECTION EXHIBITION CURATOR: The Foundation of Les Milles Camp - Memory and Education, in partnership with the Institut Fédératif Européen Pluridisciplinaire (European Federated Multidisciplinary Institute at Aix-Marseille University) MUSÉOGRAPHY : Martin Michel, Delphine Lebovici
NATIONAL EXHIBIT ON DEPORTED JEWISH CHILDREN “1942-1944: 11,400 Jewish children deported from France to Auschwitz”: exhibition organised by Serge Klarsfeld and the “Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France” Association; permanently entrusted to the Foundation of Les Milles Camp > Person at the camp – 1939 Drawing by Robert Liebknecht
PRIME CONTRACTOR / ARCHITECT: Atelier Novembre ARCHAEOLOGY / RESTORATION: Antoinette Sinigaglia (SINOPIA) PROGRAMMING / PROJECT MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE: François Guiguet
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MEMORIAL SITE OF THE CAMP DES MILLES
Access
Public partners
Vers Lyon
Avignon Cavaillon Vers Montpellier
A7
Vers Sisteron
Salon-de-Provence Arles
A54
Manosque A51
A8
A7
Foundation and association partners
Aix-en-Provence SITE-MÉMORIAL ORIAL DU CAMP S DES MILLES
Martigues
A8
D9
A55
Gare TGV
Vers Nice A51
Aéroport Marseille-Provence
Marseille Vers Toulon
Private partners
• 10 min. from Aix-en-Provence • 20 min. from Marseilles • 10 min. from the Aix-en-Provence TGV train station • 20 min. from Marseille-Provence airport
FONDATION D'ENTREPRISE
FONDATION é c u re u i l art, culture et solidarité
Contacts ODILE BOYER odile.boyer@campdesmilles.org +33 (0) 6 13 24 24 25
DINESH TEELUCK dinesh.teeluck@campdesmilles.org +33 (0) 6 78 99 74 63
An international scientific network created by the Les Milles Foundation and the Aix-Marseille University was recognized as a «UNESCO Chair» in 2013.
Document published by the Foundation of the Camp des Milles - Memory and Education. Reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-2-9543623-0-4. Photo credits: Foundation of Les Milles Camp- Memory and Education, Memorial of the Shoah, Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, Artaïs Studio.
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Flash for more info
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> The “Wall of Righteous Acts”
What would I do tomorrow if …?
Les Milles Camp Memorial Site 40, chemin de la Badesse - CS 50642 13547 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 4 Tel. : 04 42 39 17 11 - www.campdesmilles.org Foundation of Les Milles Camp - Memory and Education / A recognized public interest foundation