LES MILLES CAMP
MEMORIAL SITE
WHEN HISTORY ENLIGHTENS OUR PRESENT...
Les Milles Camp (1939-1942) is today the only French internment and deportation camp still intact and open to the public, and one of very few in Europe.
The Memorial Site's actions and missions are based on history and memory, and are aimed at keeping the site preserved whilst developing knowledge about its history. The Memorial also wishes to strengthen everyone’s vigilance against identity-based extremism, racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. The Memorial Site was inaugurated only five years ago, after a 30-year struggle for recognition driven by Shoah survivors, former members of the Resistance and the second generation, with the support of Elie Wiesel and other prominent figures. Their basic aim was to create a necessary “memory reference to the past”,
but also to scientifically and pedagogically build a “memory reference” for the present.
In 2017, the Memorial Site will reach its objective of welcoming 100,000 visitors, including over 40,000 schoolchildren. It encompasses 15,000m2 of permanent and temporary exhibitions and runs both educational programmes, designed for children and adults coming from public and private sectors, and cultural events for all audiences (theater, music, forums, research seminars etc.). A network i built with those “labelled referents” who may bring the keys of understanding on the
ground (companies, schools, police or army quarters), specially in poor areas, where extremisms are sometimes very active.
The visit starts with a historical section explaining the general European, national, and regional context of WWII, emphasising on “the rise of perils” after WWI, and focussing on Les Milles Camp’s history. Opened in September 1939 in a tile factory between Aix-en-Provence and Marseille, the Les Milles Camp lasted three years. More than 10,000 people coming from 38 countries were interned there, among them a great number of artists and intellectuals : Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer, Lion Feuchtwanger, Nobel prices…
Alain Chouraqui