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Origin and history

The Royallieu camp, located in Compiègne (Oise), was originally built in 1913 as a military barracks. During the First World War, he served as a military hospital, and later served as home between the 54th and 67th Infantry Regiments. This site became a tragic symbol during the Second World War, transformed into Frontstalag 122 by the Nazis in June 1941, under German exclusive administration (SD).

From 1941 to 1944, Royallieu became a permanent concentration camp for "active enemy elements", serving as a hostage reserve: resistors, political activists, trade unionists, Gypsies (Sinty, Manush), Jews and raided civilians. More than 54,000 people were detained there, including 50,000 deported to extermination camps such as Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Mauthausen. The camp was distinguished by deadly conditions of detention, particularly in the "Camp C", a secret section reserved for Jews, where hunger and disease decimated prisoners.

Royallieu played a central role in the Final Solution and Nazi repression in France. On 27 March 1942, the first convoy of Jews left Compiègne for Auschwitz, marking the beginning of the mass deportations from France. The camp was also the starting point of the "Aktion Meerschaum" (1943), aimed at deporting 35,000 valid men to the labour camps. Among the 30 convoys from Royallieu, some carried hostage figures (generals, prefects) or resistors, such as the convoy of the 31000 (24 January 1943) to Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz.

After the war, the site became a training centre for the Air Force ( 1950-1990s), and later housed regiments of transmissions. In 2008, a Memorial of Internment and Deportation was inaugurated in the preserved buildings, accompanied by two old wagons near the station. This place of memory honours the victims and documents the history of the camp, now ranked among the major sites of the memory of the Shoah and the Resistance in France.

The archives reveal the extent of the suffering endured in Royallieu, where Gypsy children like Eugene Fauveau (6 years old) were interned as "political". The convoys, like the one of 2 July 1944 (the "Train of Death"), illustrate Nazi barbarism: of 2,162 deported to Dachau, 530 died during the journey. The liberation of Compiègne in August 1944 ended this dark chapter, but the last convoy, hijacked by a revolt of deportees near Peronne, symbolizes their resistance to the end.

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