Mémorial du camp de Rivesaltes

On 12th November 1938, the French government promulgated a law that administratively interned the « indesirable foreigners.” This law permits the arrest and emprisonment of persons not for crimes, the anti-Franquists and volontaries of the International Brigades.
In 1939, 450 000 pass the border into France. Some of them find themselves at Rivesaltes where the military camp Joffre is being rearranged to accommodate them. Starting from June-July 1940, more than 50 000 prisoners are transferred to the camps in the south of France, in the non-Occupied Zone. The conditions in the camp are precarious and this will increase on 14th January 1941 when other prisoners from other camps are transported to Rivesaltes. They are Spaniards, Jews and Gypsies.

Between August and Novembre 1942 close to 10.000 Jews will be delivered to the Reich by the Vichy Regime. At Rivesaltes, 2313 men, women and children will be deported during nine convoys. The first deportation from Rivesaltes takes place on 11th August 1942 to Drancy. By mid-September Rivesaltes becomes an interregional centre of deportation of all Jews in the non-Occupied Zone. From the 5000 interned Jews at Rivesaltes between August and Novembre 1942, more than half will be able to escape the convoys due to aide of different organisations (the Swiss Red Cross, OSE, Cimade, YMCA, Unitarian Service, etc.) but also , due to the prefect Paul Corazzi who manages to exclude a large part of the children from deportation. Since the existence of the camp, 17.500 persons have been interned at Rivesaltes, of which 53% were Spanish, 40% (foreign) Jews and 7% (French) Gypsies. On 22nd Novembre 1942, the camp becomes a military barrack for German troops.
At the liberation of the Department of the Pyrénées-Orientales, the camp barracks will be reused as internment camp. The prisoners at this time are mainly people suspected of collaboration and black market traffickers. This occurs in September 1944 as the camp is renamed “centre of surveyed stays » (centre de séjour surveillé). In April 1945 the camp is transformed in a imprisonment camp for prisoners of war, mainly Germans but also Austrians and Italians. The number of prisoners climbs fast to more than 10.000 : the conditions deteriorate quickly and many will die in 1945. Some improvement is made in the summer of 1946 when the prisoners are used to work outside the encampment and representation of the POW is implemented. The last prisoners will be released in 1948 and the camp will be henceforth used again as “normal” military barracks.

During the Algerian War, the camp is used first as military barracks for recruites waiting to be deployed overseas. Between January and May 1962, a part of the camp is transformed into a prison where prisoners of the National Liberation Front (Algerie). From September 1962, after the Algerian War ended, the Harki (muslim Algerians who served as auxiliaries in the French army during the war) are interned in the camp with their families. They are accommodated in military tents which increases the discomfort for the Harki as the 1962 winter is particularly harsh. The families are rehoused in the barracks, but the integration of the Harki into society is difficult since they were rejected from independent Algeria and thus left out by the French government. Many of them were hired in mining, steel industrie and industries in the north of France or are dispersed in different city borders especially constructed for the Harki. In December 1964, the camp of Rivesaltes will close officially, after having approximately 21 000 Harki and their families pass through. Since the departure of the Harki, the camp will be used to host soldiers from Guinea and their families (+/- 800) after the independence of Guinea in 1958. At the same time the Rivesaltes camp also hosts soldiers from French Indochina. The camp takes on one of its former roles, an administrative detention camp for expelled foreigners from 1986 to 2007. This centre will ultimately be relocated to Perpignan, since the camp at Rivesaltes is transformed into a memorial.

All archives of the camp are held at the Departmental archives of the Pyrénées Orientales. Its collection on Rivesaltes includes:

Lists of the internees in the different camps of the department (fort de Collioure, le Barcarès, Rivesaltes, Saint-Cyprien, ) and other camps (le Vernet en Ariège ; Septfonds en Tarn-et-Garonne, le Récébédou en haute-Garonne), 1939-1945.

Registry of the post entry of the camp of Rivesaltes , 16th April-9th December 1942.

Files regarding foreigners, 1935-1963.

French Legion combatants, sine dato.

Pamflets and brochures, sine dato.

Archives of the camp of Rivesaltes : semi-analytic repertory / Nadine Gilbert. - Perpignan : Archives départementales, 1997 (updated 15 June 1998).