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Origin and history

Camp Joffre, known as "Rivesaltes camp", was founded in 1935 as a 600-hectare military training centre, riding on Rivesaltes and Salses. Initially intended for the training of troops, he was quickly diverted to intern civilian populations during troubled periods in French history. Its role evolved in response to crises: Spanish refugees fleeing Francoism in 1939, foreign Jews and Gypsies under Vichy (1941-1942), and Harkis after the Algerian war (1962-1977).

During the Second World War, the camp became a "accommodation centre" under the control of Vichy, hosting up to 21,000 internees, including Jewish families separated by gender. Between August and October 1942, he served as "Drancy of the Free Zone", transit point to Auschwitz for 2,313 Jews. Associations such as La Cimade played a crucial role in organizing escapes and saving children by falsifying papers. After 1942, the Germans made it a training camp for the Wehrmacht.

After 1944, the site served in turn as a treatment centre for collaborators, a depot for German prisoners of war (1,814 died there between 1945-1946), then as a transit camp for the Harkis from 1962. About 22,000 people, including families considered to be "unrecoverable", were relegated there before being dispersed to other sites such as Saint-Maurice-l-Ardoise. From 1986 to 2007, it will house an administrative detention centre for migrants, criticized for its conditions.

Ranked a historic monument in 2000, islet F and its barracks were preserved. A memorial project, led by Christian Bourquin and architect Rudy Ricciotti, culminates in the inauguration of the Memorial in 2015. The site, symbolizing mass internments in France, today honours the cross memories of Spanish Republicans, deported Jews, Gypsies, Harkis and prisoners of war, through steles and a museum.

The camp archives, partially saved from destruction in 1997 by a petition signed by Simone Veil and Edgar Morin, reveal the extent of the suffering endured. Works such as those of the Cimade or the Swiss Relief attest to attempts to humanize in horror. The Memorial, sponsored by Robert Badinter, aims to convey this complex history, where state repression, solidarity and resistance are mixed.

Today, the Rivesaltes Memorial is an educational and commemorative place, recalling the mechanisms of exclusion and internment in France. Steles dedicated to the Spanish (1999), Harki (1995) and deported Jews (1994) mark the site, while permanent exhibitions explore the strata of this plural memory from the 1930s to the present.

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