| Camp Vernet | |
|---|---|
| Concentration/Internment/Transit camp | |
 Aerial photograph (1945) | |
  Location of Camp Vernet within France | |
 Interactive map of Camp Vernet | |
| Coordinates | 43°11′43″N1°36′30″E / 43.19528°N 1.60833°E /43.19528; 1.60833 |
| Location | Le Vernet,Occitania Vichy France |
| Operated by | |
| Original use | Troop camp |
| First built | 1918 |
| Operational | to June 1944 |
| Inmates | Spanish refugees, Jews, former members of theInternational Brigade |
| Notable books | The Invisible Writing,Scum of the Earth |
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Le Vernet Internment Camp, orCamp Vernet, was aconcentration camp[1] inLe Vernet,Ariège, nearPamiers, in theFrench Pyrenees. It was built in 1918 as a barracks, but after World War I it was used as an internment camp forprisoners of war. From February 1939 to June 1944, it was used:
Camp Vernet was originally built in June 1918 to house French colonial troops serving inWorld War I but when hostilities ceased it was used to hold German and Austrian prisoners of war.[4]
Between the wars, it served as a military depot.[4] Towards the end of theSpanish Civil War, in February 1939 in what was calledLa Retirada (the withdrawal), it was put to a new use until September 1939 as a reception camp for Republicans fleeing fromFrancisco Franco's armies after the collapse of theSecond Spanish Republic. The camp held Republicans the French authorities deemed "a danger to public safety".[4] At this time, it held mainly former soldiers from the RepublicanDurruti Column,[1][5] the26th Division and 150International Brigades members, segregated in an area named "the leper colony". The camp covered an area of about 50 hectares, divided into three sections and surrounded by barbed wire fences.[6]
With the outbreak ofWorld War II, the role of the camp was expanded. It was used to house "undesirable" foreigners, in particular, anti-fascist intellectuals and former members of theInternational Brigades,[1] particularly the more troublesome or senior veterans.[7]
There is now a small museum at Le Vernet[8] and Le Vernet features inPhilip Kerr's 2010 novelField Grey and in the 2012 novelCitadel by Kate Mosse, which follows the lives of a group of local people and resistance fighters.
After theFall of France on 25 June 1940, Camp Vernet was taken over by the pro-NaziVichy France authorities, to house "all foreigners considered suspect or dangerous to the public order".[1] It then passed to the Germans, who rebuilt it according to their own concentration camp guidelines.Arthur Koestler was a prisoner there and declared that "from the point of view of food, installations and hygiene, Vernet was worse than a Nazi concentration camp".[6] From 1942, Le Vernet was used as a holding centre for Jewish families awaiting deportation to Nazi labour and extermination camps.[1] The final transport, in June 1944, took the remaining prisoners toDachau concentration camp.[1] One source says that "about 40,000 persons of 58 nationalities were interned in the camp".[1]
Media related toLe Vernet Internment Camp at Wikimedia Commons
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