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All French heritage classified by regions, departments and cities

  2. Divers
  3. Occitanie
  4. Ariège
  5. 09700 Saverdun

  6. Vernet concentration and internment camp

Vernet concentration and internment camp à Saverdun dans l'Ariège

Ariège

Vernet concentration and internment camp

    15 Plaine d'Embayonne
    09700 Saverdun
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Camp de concentration et d‘internement du Vernet
Crédit photo : LucasD - Sous licence Creative Commons

Timeline

XIXe siècle
Époque contemporaine
1900
2000
juin 1918
Construction of camp
février-septembre 1939
Spanish Republican Internment
1939-1944
Vichy period
1942
Jewish transit camp
30 juin 1944
Final evacuation
3 mars 2019
Protection of remains
Aujourd'hui
Aujourd'hui

Heritage classified

The following elements of the concentration and internment camp of the Vernet, as delimited in red on the plans annexed to the decree: the cemetery (common of Saverdun); the entrance pillars of the camp, the water tower, the station and the old landing dock, in full (commune du Vernet); the base plots of the camp (excluding the structures not mentioned above) situated in the communes of Saverdun and Vernet (Cd. Saverdun: E 1906, 1987, 2423, 3570, 3572, 3590, 3872, 3874, 3878 and 3879; Le Vernet : B 1131, 1133, 1134, 1143, 1144, 1146, 1149, 1423, 1456, 1475, 1476, 1481, 1488, 1492, 1506 to 1511, 1612 to 1617, 1627, 1629, 1859, 1860 and 1862) : registration by order of 5 March 2019

Key figures

Arthur Koestler - Writer and journalist Interned in 1939-1940, author of "La Lie de la terre".
Lion Feuchtwanger - German writer pacifist Interned as an antifascist during the war.
Francisco Ponzán Vidal - Spanish anarcho-unionist Organizer of escape networks from the camp.
Erwin Blumenfeld - American photographer Interned before fleeing to the United States.
Joseph Bass - French Jewish Resistant Founder of the André network, interned at the Vernet.
Carlos Duchatellier - Haitian painter Visual accounts of life in the camp.

Origin and history

The Vernet camp, built in June 1918 near Saverdun in Ariège, was originally designed to accommodate colonial troops. After the First World War, he served as a camp for German and Austrian prisoners, and as early as February 1939 he interned for Spanish Republicans fleeing the civil war (Retirada). This site became a symbol of repression under the Vichy regime, hosting approximately 40,000 internees from 54 to 58 nationalities between 1939 and 1945.

Under Vichy (1939-1944), the camp involved foreigners considered "undesirable": communists, anarchists, antifascists, Jews and workers of the Foreign Workers' Company (CTE). The conditions were extreme, described by internees like Arthur Koestler in The Lie of the Earth. From 1942 he became a transit camp for the arrested Jews, before their deportation to Dachau or Auschwitz, notably via the "phantom train" of June 1944.

The camp was evacuated on 30 June 1944 by the Germans, who deported the last 398 internees to Dachau. Today, there are only remains (pillars of entry, castle of water, cemetery) protected since 2019. A museum at the Vernet and commemorative steles (antifascists, resistors, Jewish deportees) perpetuate the memory of the victims. Historiographic debate persists on his qualification as a "concentration camp", a term used in archives but contested by some historians.

Famous internees include intellectuals such as Lion Feuchtwanger, artists such as Erwin Blumenfeld, or resistors such as Francisco Ponzán. The camp also illustrates the diversity of memories, between political repression and racial persecution, with distinct tributes for antifascists, Jews, and Spanish Republicans. The research of the Amicale des Anciens Internés du Vernet helps to document this complex history.

The memorial sites include a commemorative car at the Vernet station, recalling deportation convoys, and a multilingual space in front of the cemetery. These elements underline the importance of the camp as a witness to the violence of the twentieth century, between collaboration, resistance and Shoah, in a context where Ariège was both a land of welcome and repression.

External links

Page Wikipedia
Page Monumentum