15,000 M2
EXHIBITION SPACE
In 2017, the Memorial Site will reach its objective of welcoming 100,000 visitors
intellectuals : Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer, Lion Feuchtwanger, Nobel prices…Many of them resisted by the spirit and the art to the attempts of dehumanization and the persecutions : hundreds of pieces of art were found, even on the walls of the camp.
A tragic spiral happened, beginning with the internment decided by the republican government in 1939 for civilians considered as “enemies”, even if most of them had escaped the Reich. In July 1942, Les Milles became a camp for “undesirables” under the Vichy collaborationist regime, especially for Jews. In the Summer 1942 a third period happened with the deportation of 2,000 Jewish men, women, and children -from one year old- to Auschwitz via Drancy or Rivesaltes.
A second section presents the historical locations used for internment and deportation, but also some striking places like “Die Katakombe” which was the name of a cabaret in Berlin closed by the Nazis.
This last section is a reflective one based on the scientific results which may give keys for understanding the processes at work and help in addressing some major questions raised by the civilizational trauma of the Shoah : How did it happen ? Which we translate in that way : “How can we move from “Never again !” to “How to do for never again ?”
Named “Understanding for today” this section is meant to be a reflexive time which invites the visitor to undertake a multidisciplinary reflection on the present based on historical experience and on scientific experiments on human behaviour.
In this section, the visitor can discover the main human mechanisms which may lead a society from democracy to authoritarian regimes then mass crimes : for instance group effect, submission to authority, passivity…
Camp des Milles site (All photos in this article: Fondation du Camp des Milles – Mémoire et Éducation)