Relief Organizations and Resistance to Vichy-era Internment Camps
Installment 7 of: ‘The Making of the Modern Internment Regime.’
Relief organizations provided the most prevalent form of resistance within Vichy-era internment camps like Camp de Rivesaltes, working within and outside of the law to bring aid to those interned. Internees in many other camps attempted to flee their conditions with explicit escape attempts; 700 internees in Gurs, for example, successfully fled their camp (Gurs, no date). Camp de Rivesaltes acted as an exception to this fact, as internees mostly escaped their imprisonment through the aid of relief organizations, as the camp housed only families during the Vichy era of the internment camp. The Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), Comité inter-mouvements auprès des èvacuès (CIMADE), and others worked within the confines of Vichy internment camps, while their representatives within the camps blurred the lines between officially sanctioned relief and providing means of escape to internees.
Camp Life
Simone Weil explains that a great deal of the food mandated under the Geneva Convention for the internees ended up in the black market, so the OSE aimed to distribute additional rations from the Swiss Red Cross and other sources (Simone Weil Lipman describes camp conditions and her work for the Children’s Aid Societ…, no date). The low food reserves in the region combined with the infestation of rodents and other pests resulted in internees at camps like Rivesaltes eating fewer than 800 calories a day (Conditions in the French Detention and Internment Camps, no date).
“The camp was situated in an area where what I remember mostly is the wind blowing, this hot wind called “La Tramontane” [north wind], which, the people being so weak from malnutrition, uh they just rolled along with the wind. They couldn’t…they couldn’t walk in the wind (sic)” (Simone Weil Lipman describes camp…, no date).
Weakened internees were especially susceptible to disease, and with a seeming lack of sanitary care in the camps, many fell ill (Conditions in…, no date). 80% of internees at Rivesaltes were afflicted with chronic enteritis, and tuberculosis threatened the lives of many (Conditions in…, no date). Cachexia, an illness which causes muscular atrophy and severe weight loss, spread quickly through the camp beginning in July 1941; that winter the General Inspect of Camps tested 9000 internees, deciding that fewer than half were in good health, and more than 1,100 suffered the symptoms of cachexia (Exhibition Record Booklet, no date). Camp officials rarely gave internees much-needed medical attention and the local St. Louis Hospital in Perpignan was described as “resembling the worst medieval general hospitals” (Conditions in…, no date).
Providing Aid in Internment Camps
The Protestant Comité Inter-Mouvements Auprès Des Èvacuès (CIMADE) was a major force in providing relief and aiding in the rescue of Jews in Vichy France (Kedward, 1993, p. 10). CIMADE first appeared in Rivesaltes on June 30, 1941, and created a system modeled on Madeleine Barrot’s efforts in Gurs (Boitel, 2014). Although lauded for its relief work within the camps, CIMADE’s greatest triumphs lied in its rescue missions. CIMADE also took advantage of the Vichy government’s GTE Groupements de travailleurs Étrangers system, which moved interned workforces out of larger internment camps and into rural labor camps (Kedward, 1993, p. 12). CIMADE procured Vichy work permits for Jews to relocate to these camps, eventually allowing these individuals to take advantage of the lessened security of these camps and escape (Kedward, 1993, p. 12). Here is a timeline of CIMADE’s history in Rivesaltes:
1939. CIMADE Founded
1941 (30, June). CIMADE installed at Rivesaltes
1941 (October). CIMADE Rivesaltes grows to Three Members
The OSE was another major player in internee relief in Rivesaltes and other Vichy internment camps, especially focusing on aiding interned children. While initially focused on Russian Jewish issues, the organization continue to spread across Europe until it reached France in 1934 (OSE: 100 Years of History, 2012, p. 11). Documentation pertaining to the arrival of the OSE to Camp Rivesaltes seems to have been lost, but a great deal of the organization’s work within the camp survives through memoirs, oral accounts, and a paper trail of forged documents.
Andrée Salomon arranged many of the organization’s heroic efforts to relocate Jewish children. Jews faced increasing danger from the rise of the antisemitic and Nazi-backed Vichy government, sparking Salomon’s work with the OSE; while starting with more basic relief work, she eventually became the chief of service within the organization (Weill, 2012, p. 94–6). Andrée Salomon’s actions as OSE chief, combined with the work of in-camp volunteers, secured the safety of 500 children away from the internment camp system; a small number in the face of the amount of interned people who passed through Rivesaltes before their deaths, but still a victory for the OSE (OSE: 100 Years of History, 2012, p. 13).
In May 1941 the OSE opened a branch entirely dedicated to the relocation of children to homes in the Americas (Samuel et al, 2013, p. 56). The organization sent requests to the Canadian, Argentine, Mexican, Cuban, Venezuelan, and Chinese governments, in the hopes that they would accept these child emigrants (Samuel et al, 2013, p. 56). The OSE organized three convoys of children to the New World: one in May 1941, the second in August-September 1941, and the third in May 1942 (Samuel et al, 2013, p. 55–56). These three convoys transported the majority of Jewish children away from their suffering in Camp Rivesaltes, only leaving behind five children whose parents were too distraught to part with them (Samuel et al, 2013, 56). Here is a timeline of all major events relating to the OSE in Rivesaltes:
1939 (November). OSE begins Children’s Homes Program
1941 (May). First Convoy of Children to America
1941 (August-September). Second Convoy of Children to America
1942 (May). Third Convoy of Children to America
1944 (February). OSE ends Children’s Homes Program
Varian Fry is another famous name in refugee relocation effort. Fry and his frequent collaborator Paul Hagan recognized the need to rescue European-based antifascist figures from the threat of Nazi occupation, formed the Emergency Rescue Committee, and traveled to Marseilles with a list of names and a YMCA identification card on August 15, 1940 (Rosenberg, 2007). Fry abandoned his original three week mission by staying in the country for a year, and establishing the American Relief Center (Rosenberg, 2007). The American Relief Center, practically serving as a front for the rescue of anti-fascist refugees, forged documents, operated secret mountain passes, and utilized black market funds to ensure the safe travel of 2,000 refugees (Varian Fry, no date). A great number of European intellectuals were rescued through his efforts, including Max Ernst, Hannah Arendt, and Marc Chagall, among others (Rosenberg, 2007). On August 29, 1941, the Vichy government declared Fry as an “undesirable alien” and he was expelled from the country (Rosenberg, 2007).
Extreme Resistance
The nature of internment camps in Vichy France meant that the interned population consisted of a great deal of political persons, affiliated with either communist or resistance movements (McNiff, 2004, p. 101). Le Vernet, another Vichy internment camp, kept political prisoners in Quarter B, the highest security section of the camp where residents were granted the least amount of privileges (McNiff, 2004, pp. 131–132). Political internees presented the highest risk of disrupting day-to-day camp life in the eyes of camp officials (McNiff, 2004, p. 132). Mid-October 1940 marked the first major communist-lead demonstration at Le Vernet, where 48 protesters cried for a new barrack head (McNiff, 2004, p. 122). A far greater disturbance occurred in February 1942 when the internees of Quarter C prevented their commandant from taking two men to their prison sentences; Quarter C residents, supported by the communists of Quarter B, escalated this prevention to large demonstrations demanding food and fair treatment (McNiff, 2004, pp. 125–126). Resistance forces such as the Maquis aided in the escape of internees, sometimes recruiting escapees to organize further resistance efforts (Sanchez).
Although marked by some independent escapees, the resistance movement against the Vichy internment camp system within Camp de Rivesaltes was championed by relief organizations. Organizations like the OSE, CIMADE, and the ERC used their official standings with the Vichy government to provide legal care to malnourished and suffering internees, while many of their agents used illegal means to ensure safe escapes for refugees. Although organized resistance fronts aided in escape from other Vichy-era internment camps such as Gurs and Le Vernet, most resistance operations in Camp de Rivesaltes focused on the emigration of child internees.
Bibliography
Published Secondary Sources
OSE: 100 Years of History, 2012.
Boitel, A. (2014) ‘Agir, témoigner, résister au sein d’un camp d’internement français : l’action de la Cimade à Rivesaltes entre 1941 et 1942,’ in Blanc-Chaléard, M.-C., Dreyfus-Armand, G., Kévonian, D., Amar, M. (Eds.), La Cimade et l’accueil Des Réfugiés : Identités, Répertoires d’actions et Politique de l’asile, 1939–1994, Sciences Humaines et Sociales. Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre, Nanterre, pp. 83–99.
Kedward, H.R. (1993) In search of the maquis: rural resistance in southern France, 1942–1944 Clarendon Press ; Oxford University Press, Oxford [Eng.] : New York.
McNiff, K.W. (2004) The French internment camp Le Vernet d’Ariège: Local administration, collaboration, and public opinion in Vichy France (Ph.D.). Princeton University, Ann Arbor.
Moorehead, C. (2014) Village of secrets: defying the Nazis in Vichy France, First U.S. edition. ed. Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY.
Weill, G. (2012) Andrée Salomon et le Sauvetage des enfants juifs (1933–1947). French Politics, Culture & Society 30, 89–112.
Zuccotti, S. (2007) Holocaust Odysseys : The Jews of Saint-Martin-Vesubie and Their Flight Through France and Italy. Yale University Press, New Haven, UNITED STATES.
Published Memoirs
Samuel, V., Paul, C.B., Wiesel, E. (2013) Rescuing the Children : A Holocaust Memoir. University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin, UNITED STATES.
Archival Source
Conditions in the French Detention and Internment Camps, n.d.
Reference Sources
Gurs — Britannica Academic, n.d.
Gurs: A Brief History — Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, n.d.
Hidden Children: Hardships, n.d. . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, n.d. . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Le sauvetage des enfants juifs pendant l’occupation [WWW Document], n.d. . Oeuvre de secours aux enfants. URL http://www.ose-france.org/memoire/le-service-archive-et-histoire-de-l%e2%80%99ose/l%e2%80%99ose-100-ans-d%e2%80%99histoire/le-sauvetage-des-enfants-juifs-pendant-l%e2%80%99occupation/ (accessed 3.21.18).
Madeleine Barot (1909–1995) | Musée virtuel du Protestantisme, n.d.
Rosenberg, J., 2007. Fry, Varian (1907–1967), editor, journalist, and teacher | American National Biography.
Simone Weil, n.d. . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Varian Fry, n.d. . United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Memorial du Camp de Rivesaltes, n.d. Exhibition Record Booklet.
Recorded or Transcribed Testimonies
Lipman, S.W., 2006. Oral history interview with Simone Weil Lipman.
Lipman, S.W., n.d. Simone Weil Lipman describes camp conditions and her work for the Children’s Aid Societ…
Zalc, A., 2009. Oral history interview with André Zalc — Collections Search — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Interviews
Sanchez, F., 2018. Conversation with Fernando Sanchez.
Photographic/Video/Audio Sources
Children, imprisoned in the Rivesaltes transit camp, attend an OSE pre-school. — Collections Search — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1942. Available at: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa9896
Marseille, France, OSE relief worker, Andree Salomon, with a group of Jewish refugee children before their departure to the United States, 1941., 1941. Available at: https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/marseille-france-ose-relief-worker-andree-salomon-with-a-group-of-jewish-refugee-children-before-their-departure-to-the-united-states-1941/AAFdTLIVCAvG6g
Volunteer resident social workers and OSE staff in the Rivesaltes transit camp. — Collections Search — United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1942. Available at: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1043282
Lipman, S.W., 1938. Simone Weil Lipman papers. Available at: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn601927#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=131%2C356%2C438%2C297
