France’s “Camp of Shame”
Installment 14 of: ‘The Making of the Modern Internment Regime.’
Memorials and museums commemorating France’s history of interning strangers and undesirables are rare. Traces of most camps are long gone. However, this has not stopped the generation of the victims’ children from attempting to record what took place. “This is part of my family and personal history,” says Fernando Sanchez, a member of the Amicale des anciens internés du Camp du Vernet d’Ariege, as he points to a carefully crafted model of the original camp displayed in the organization’s tiny museum.
“The story told after the war [was] that France resisted. And this kind of story is not [true]… They didn’t do anything to put the [real] story out of the shade. And that’s what we’re trying to do.” -Fernando Sanchez
The impressive memorial museum at Camp Rivesaltes is one of the very few exceptions to this pattern. People have long been working to honor to honor the victims and to record the horrific history of Rivesaltes. It was not until 1997, however, when the camp’s original archives were discovered in a nearby garbage dump, that their initiatives gained public attention and support. (Breeden, 2016) Politician Simone Veil, novelist Claude Simon, and philosopher Edgar Morin worked with locals Claude Delmas and Claude Vauchez to produce a collective petition, “To the living memory of the camp of Rivesaltes.” In 2005, a hundred-acre area of the immense camp was finally closed off. The Rivesaltes Memorial Museum, designed by architect Rudy Ricciotti, was finally completed on October 16, 2015. (Département des Pyrénées-Orientales, 2017)
At Rivesaltes, the French government has undoubtedly taken important steps in commemorating those interned there. However, the commemoration must itself be analyzed. The memorial acknowledges the presence of an extensive network of camps, and museum educators work hard to convey the inhumane conditions faced by those interned in them. At the same time, audio-visual presentations at Rivesaltes imply that the horrors of Rivesaltes were, in part, a consequence of a country over-run with refugees just before and during World War II — i.e., they were the result of efforts to cope with an emergency rather than part of a coordinated politics. In contrast, some scholars suggest that authorities were fully aware of the brutal living conditions in the camps, and that they still chose brutal internment strategies to segregate or refoul displaced populations. (Pathé and Théofilakis, 2013) As a result, even after the Rivesaltes Memorial has been established, the children of Spanish Republicans, French Jews, and Algerian Harkis who were interned there continued to fight along battle to receive recognition of the willful harm done their parents by the French government.
Who Seeks Recognition?
In 1999, the local government of Argeles-sur-Mer, the location of another internment camp where Spanish Republicans were held, commemorated sixty years since the Retirada — or mass exodus that followed Franco’s victory. In conjunction with those efforts, they built a stele in Rivesaltes as one of three monuments recognizing the camp’s victims. Members of Fils et filles de republicans espagnols et enfants de l’exode (FFREEE), or Sons and Daughters of Spanish Republicans and Children of the Exodus, work hard to erect the stele.
The primary focus of the organization, however, is the preservation of the voices of previous generations. There are records of paintings, sculptures, poems, journals, concerts, and plays that the internees created. (Villegas 2008) “Artists used what they could find in the camp: animal bones, pieces of wood, empty cans, soap, wrapping paper and so on.” (Moulinie, 2013) The generation alive today is working hard to protect and disseminate the record of France’s internment of their parents and grandparents.
Between 1941 and 1944, Vichy France interned and deported nearly 80,000 French Jews to German concentration camps and death camps. (Lewis, 2015)The Fils et filles de déportés juifs de France (FFDJF), or Sons and Daughters of Jewish Deportees from France has spearheaded efforts to have the French state formally acknowledge and recognize its role in these horrors. The organization’s leaders, such as Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, have also worked to bring justice to the French Jews of World War II by insisting on the prosecution of Nazi and Vichy officials who collaborated in the ‘final solution,’ and by compiling an extensive list of all Jewish victims. (Marrus, 1995)
Their work had also had results in Rivesaltes, and culminated in the construction of the first of the monumental stele on the site, built in 1995. It is a memorial to the Jews who were deported from Rivesaltes to Auschwitz.
At the end of the Algerian War of Independence, the harkis, Muslim Algerian auxiliaries who enlisted in the French army, were interned with their families in camps such as Rivesaltes. (Miller, 2013) . The harkis remained long forgotten, and both the Algerian and French government established an image of them as traitors. (Eldridge, 2009) However, their children and grandchildren have attempted to present a different history in a fight for their recognition.
1975. young men wearing North African outfits riot against the local police, the events were broadcast across the nation
1999. French parliament finally acknowledges that events in Algeria between 1954 and 1962 were a war of independence rather than as “operations to maintain order” (Eldridge, 2009)
2017. then Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron finally takes first substantial political stance on French colonization, recognizing that “[French colonization is] a crime against humanity… [France should] offer apologies to all those toward whom we directed these acts.” (Chazan, 2017)
In 1995, a monumental stone was finally established on the Rivesaltes grounds. Fatima Besnasi, head of the National Harki Association and daughter of a harki, says: “France is probably still ashamed, but I want that shame to be publicly stated [and for] France [to recognize] its responsibility for abandoning the Harkis in 1962, and how that led to the massacres in Algeria. France must also assume responsibility for interning our parents in camps.” (Hadden, 2012) The harkis are finally one step away from being les oubliés de l’histoire, or the forgotten ones of history.
Over the past few decades, these organizations and the French government have made significant progress toward the common goal of correcting the official narratives concerning internment, though fundamental differences remain to be resolved. The Rivesaltes Memorial Museum is undoubtedly an impressive achievement in France’s efforts to come to terms with its history, but it is these steles — a mile away from the memorial museum — that truly represent the victims. These small groups are working hard towards one common goal: for French citizens to acknowledge a shameful reality about their nation’s history.
Block Quote Sources:
Sanchez, F., 2018. May 22. In-person Interview.
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