Camp des Milles

The Camp des Milles was a French internment camp, opened in September 1939, in a former tile factory near the village of Les Milles, part of the commune of Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône).

The camp was first used to intern Germans and ex-Austrians living in the Marseille area, and by June 1940, some 3,500 artists and intellectuals were detained there. Novelist Lion Feuchtwanger was an inmate. Surrealist artists Hans Bellmer and Max Ernst were imprisoned in the Camp des Milles prison for most of World War II.Between 1941 and 1942 Le Camp des Milles was used as a transit camp for Jews, mainly men. Women were at the Centre Bompard in Marseille, while they waited for their [http://www.jewishtraces.org/search.php visas and anthorisations] to emigrate.As emigration became impossible, Les Milles became one of the "centres de rassemblement" before deportation. About 2,000 of the inmates were shipped off to the Drancy internment camp on the way to Auschwitz.

After the war, the site was briefly re-opened in 1946 as a factory.

Since 1993, the sites serves as a World War II memorial.

In 1995 a movie titled "Les Milles" commemorating this camp and the events that took place in this camp at the time of the Armistice in June 1940 was made.

External links

* [http://www.campdesmilles.org/ Website about the Camp des Milles]
* [http://perso.wanadoo.fr/d-d.natanson/artistes_milles.htm The artists of the Camp des Milles] (in French)
* [http://guyboutin.free.fr/lesmilles/campdesmilles/camp.htm Personal website about the camp] (in French)
* [http://www.apra.asso.fr/Camps/Camp-LesMilles.html Webpage about the camp] (in French)