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Heritage classified

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Origin and history

The detention centre of Eysses, located in a former Benedictine abbey founded in the 11th century, was transformed into a prison in 1803 by a decree of 16 fructidor an XI. Initially a central house under Napoleon (1808), he received long sentences. In 1895 it became a juvenile prison colony, applying the Horn Act of 1850, and specializes in the confinement of young offenders or undisciplined, under conditions often criticized for their harshness.

During the Second World War, during the Vichy regime, Eysses became a political prison welcoming up to 1,430 resistors in February 1944. The detainees, organized in clandestine committees, publish newspapers and prepare a revolt. On February 19, 1944, an insurrection broke out: the prisoners took control of the plant, but the intervention of the GMR and German artillery forced them to surrender. In retaliation, 12 resistors were shot on 23 February against the south-east wall, now classified as a historical monument.

The site, marked by this repression, then sees 1,121 prisoners deported to Dachau, 400 of whom will perish. After the war, the centre remained a prison, but the Wall of the Fusillas, registered in 1996 and then classified in 2022, became a place of memory. A commemorative ceremony is held in February each year. The abbey, partially preserved, also bears witness to its monastic and prison past, with buildings dating from the seventeenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Architecturally, the site combines original abbey elements (south and west wings, vaulted ground floor) and prison extensions (cell wards, 19th century workshops). The stone and brick walls, as well as the still visible "hen cages", recall the conditions of detention. Today, the centre, with a capacity of 294 places, also includes educational projects, such as a solidarity grocery store run by inmates.

The memory of Eysses is preserved by associations, exhibitions (such as So high as the walls in 2002) and documentaries. The Wall of the Fusillas, symbol of the resistance and Nazi barbarism, remains a place of recollection and tribute to the 12 victims of 1944, including Roger Brun, as well as to the deportees of the FFI battalion of Eysses.

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