Camp Rivesaltes

Today my brothers and I visited this camp which is 40km from the Spanish border in Southern France. It is only open one weekend a year, and came close to demolition in 1997. It holds many untold secrets, and there is scant information on its history. It was initially set up to hold Spanish refugees after the Spanish civil war. Conditions were atrocious with no clean water and many died from typhus and malnutrition. However, in 1942 the Germans rounded up Jews and Gypsies from all over France, placed them in Rivesaltes, and then deported them to Auschwitz. Many locals must have known about the atrocities but their secrets have gone to their graves. It was also used to house Algerian soldiers sympathetic to France in the war of independence. It finally closed in 1997 when it was being used as a immigration detention centre. In the picture there is a path made of broken pieces of building material, which is supposed to represent the broken lives of those detained here. History in the making. Most of the information we were given by the guide comes from the diary of a Swiss nurse who worked at a nearby Hospital where some of the children from the camp were treated.