Re-use of Sites and Remembrance Initiatives
Initially, many camps continued to be used after the liberation of their inmates. German prisoners of war and French individuals suspected of collaboration were held prisoner.
This was also the situation in Gurs, which had been taken over by the French Republic in August 1944. Some camps were later used as “centres de retention” (detention centres), while others were left to decay.
In France, it was the French Resistance, which had fought against the German occupation, that for a long time took centre stage and dominated discussions on the memory of Nazi crimes. It was not until the mid-1990s, when former president Jacques Chirac recognised the French state’s responsibility for deporting the Jews from France, that perceptions began to alter. In 1994, Gurs camp was announced as one of three national memorials. These sites are intended to commemorate the victims of the racist and antisemitic persecution and the crimes against humanity that were carried out under the joint responsibility of the Nazi and Vichy regimes. Since then, memorial sites have been established in many other places, largely thanks to initiatives by survivor associations and sponsoring associations.
Photo by Dani Karavan, Homage to the Prisoners of Gurs, 1993-94
Many Southwest German Jews were taken from Gurs to other camps in France, where they died. Today, graves of the deported can be found in more than 30 French towns and communities, for example, in Noé. In agreement with the local French authorities and Jewish community, the cemeteries are cared for and maintained by the German federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.
At an event to mark the 40th anniversary of the camp’s opening, numerous survivors met in Gurs at the end of April 1979. Together they founded the Amicale du Camp de Gurs association, following in the steps of former Spanish prisoners who had already campaigned for the commemoration of the camp.
For many decades, German-French youth meetings and summer camps have taken place at the locations of the former camps or at current-day memorial sites. In Neckarzimmern, under the artistic direction of Karl Vollmer, a youth project that lasted many years was initiated to remember the deportation of the Southwest German Jews. It is comprised of memorial stones for more than 100 localities in southwest Germany, arranged in the shape of a Star of David.
Sketch and acrylic painting by Monika Kirks, 2020
At the beginning of the 1990s, artist Gunter Demnig began to lay Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) in front of the last addresses of victims of persecution in Germany. Accompanied by a public campaign, the thousands of brass blocks make up the largest decentralised memorial to remember the victims of National Socialism in the world. In France, there remained concerns about this kind of commemoration for a long time, with Strasbourg being the first city to lay Stolpersteine in 2019. These memorial blocks also commemorate the Jews imprisoned in Gurs in multiple places in Germany.
The Jewish writer, Anna Seghers, depicted the last stage of her flight from the National Socialists in her novel Transit. About 70 years after the first German edition appeared in 1948, Christian Petzold’s film Transit celebrated its premier. Petzold succeeded in portraying the themes of the novel in the present-day. This film still shows the actor Franz Rogowski in the streets of Marseille. The Jewish writer, Anna Seghers, depicted the last stage of her flight from the National Socialists in her novel Transit. About 70 years after the first German edition appeared in 1948, Christian Petzold’s film Transit celebrated its premier. Petzold succeeded in portraying the themes of the novel in the present-day. This film still shows the actor Franz Rogowski in the streets of Marseille.