Vichy's contribution to the Shoah

Les Milles (Week 21)

The village of Les Milles is best known today as being the site of Aix's box stores (it reminds me of Crowfoot Crossing in Calgary).  On the other side of town is a factory complex that, for about 70 of its 75 years, made clay tiles (ubiquitous in Provençal architecture).  For the other four years, in the midst of WWII, it was the site of an internment camp for Jews, Gypsies, and others considered undesirable to the Nazi (and therefore Vichy) regime.  The prisoners were arrested throughout Provence and collected here prior to their deportation to Drancy and thence to Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, et al.

the 1st-floor kiln room, with art on the pillars

The site was eventually turned into the Site-Mémorial du Camps des Milles.  Visitors can tour the space; it now includes interpretive signage although the camp itself hasn't been recreated per se.  In a way, the open, bare-walled spaces are more effective at communicating the dehumanization of the concentration camp system.  Most evocative are the graffiti and decorative paintings scattered throughout the living areas - many of the Jewish artistic and intellectual elite of Germany had fled the Nazis and ended up in Provence, so they were caught in the French collapse of 1940 along with the French Jews.  Thus, a large number of artists were interned here, and they expressed themselves in the Camp by writing verses on the walls or creating friezes on the concrete beams.  Unfortunately, because the living quarters were in the tile kilns, they were mostly lost when the kilns went back into use after the war.

This building housed up to 3000 internees. The suicide window is the open window on the second floor at the centre of the picture.  The infirm were housed on the 1st floor, able-bodied men on the 2nd floor, women and children on the 3rd.

there is a Star of David on the door

All the signage is in English and French.  There are a number of surprising tidbits, including the 2nd-floor "suicide window" from where inmates who wanted to try to kill themselves would jump.  We also saw the back-side skylight where the teenagers would climb up to the roof to hide when they were gathering people to put on the trains, the pathetically inadequate latrines, and an Auschwitz "cattle-car" sitting on the actual railway siding where they would load deportees.

mural in the guards' canteen

The best preserved prisoner art is in the former guards' canteen.  The artists managed to inject some ironic humour into the art, including the message, Si vos assiettes ne sont pas très garnies, puissent nos dessins vous calmer l'appétit ("If your plates aren't full enough, let our drawings curb your appetite").  One of the strangest things about the site is the level of security - the entrance checkpoint is more secure than an airport, with metal detectors and an "airlock" system that visitors have to be buzzed into and out of.