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Origin and history

The castle of Sainte-Anne, located in Fiac in the Tarn (Occitanie region), is a building probably built during the nineteenth century. It belonged to the Jacobe family of Naure, a lineage of the little local nobility. Louise Jacobé de Naurois was born there in 1878, illustrating her roots in family and regional history. The architecture of the castle, of sober and symmetrical style, reflects the aesthetic cannons of the era, with its white-coated facades and dardian roofs.

During the Second World War, the castle became the scene of a historical drama. On 8 October 1943, the Gestapo arrested the Jewish family Elina, then residing in the castle, before deporting her to Auschwitz, where she died. Only their daughter, Odette Elina, resistor warned by the parish priest of Viterbe, temporarily escapes this raid. This fact marks the long-term history of the place, combining its name with the memory of the Shoah in France.

Since the mid-20th century, the castle of Sainte-Anne has been owned by the French state. It now houses a psychosocial rehabilitation unit, attached to the hospital in Lavaur. This conversion into a medical institution is part of a French tradition of reassigning architectural heritage to public uses, while preserving the memory of the tragic events that took place there. The building also preserves a chapel, recalling its heritage both residential and, today, therapeutic.

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