Camp de Rivesaltes

Today was a European heritage day and the Camp de Rivesaltes was open for a guided visit. The camp has had a chequered history as a military camp, an accommodation centre after the Retirada (the refugee exodus after the Spanish civil war), a transit camp for Jews to be sent on to Nazi concentration camps by the Vichy regime, a prisoner of war centre after the Allies moved through France and a rehabilitation centre for the Harkis after the Algerian war of independence (the Harkis were Algerian supporters of the French colonial regime who fled their country.) It also was used as an immigration detention centre. Conditions were appalling and many died in the wartime period. The history of the camp was ignored for years and only now are people talking about this embarrassing period of French history.
The photo shows an asbestos roadway constructed from camp materials by students. Visitors are invited to walk on and fracture the tiles as a poignant symbolic act.
More information is available here.