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I spent the day yesterday exploring this fascinating location in the foothills in the pyrenees in southern France. Despite the beautiful setting, it was the scene of massive hardship and tragedy during #WW2 This is the story of Rivesaltes.
Built in the 1930's as a French military base close, within a few years of opening, and lacking in all but basic essentials it was repurposed by French authorities to accommodate thousands of Spanish civilians fleeing persecution in the Spanish Civil War in awful conditions.
In 1939 all that changed. With the outbreak of war in 1939, Jews and Gypsies in particular fled their home countries and everything they owned, travelling thousands of miles, many hoping that southern France would offer some kind of safety.
Despite being initially accommodated, when Germany invaded France in 1940 and overran the nothern part of the country, the feeling of temporary safety was shortlived. In mid 1940 a new Free French Government was installed in Vichy.
The persecution many of these families had suffered in the late 30's returned quickly, and although not overt, the puppet Vichy regime was already planning to follow German instructions. In the camp foreign Jews and Gypsies were segregated from others at first.
In 1941 the Vichy Government, under pressure from German authorities rounded up more than 2200 jews and gypsies who had fled here hoping for protection, told them to take what little belongings they had and loaded them on trains. These photos, taken in secret, record the moment.
In the course of two months, a total of 8 trains under direct supervision of the French Government sent thousands of men, women and children who had appealed to them for help, straight back into the hands of those from whom they had fled.
Each and every one of those trains was sent to the notorious Drancy internment camp where passengers were disembarked and re-loaded for 'the east'. They did not know it but their destination was a camp near a little known village named Auschwitz
Almost every single one of the 2200 people to seek refuge in Rivesaltes only to be returned to the Nazi regime perished in the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Today only the ruins of the camp at Rivesaltes and a memorial to those who died remains. Its a strange place to visit and feels a million miles from the story of the holocaust, but goes to show just how far reaching the tragedy of the Second World War really was.
