Camp Gurs

Camp Gurs was a Refugee Camp constructed in 1939 in Gurs, a site in southwestern France, not far from Pau. The camp was originally set up by the French government after the fall of Catalonia at the end of the Spanish Civil War to control those who fled Spain out of fear of retaliation from Francisco Franco's regime. At the start of World War II, the French government interned Germans and citizens of other Axis Powers, as well as French nationals who were considered to have dangerous political ideas or who were imprisoned for ordinary crimes.

After the Vichy government signed an armistice with the Nazis in 1940, it became an Internment camp for Jews of any nationality except French, as well as people considered dangerous by the government. After France's liberation, Gurs housed German prisoners of war and French collaborators. Before its final closure in 1946, the camp also held former Spanish Republican fighters who participated in the Resistance against the German occupation, because their stated intention of opposing the fascist dictatorship imposed by Franco made them threatening in the eyes of the Allies.

After the victory of Francisco Franco's forces over the Spanish Republic on 1 April 1939, many combatants, together with their relatives and other people who feared Franco's repression, fled to France. The French government built various camps to give shelter to these refugees. The most important camp was the one at Gurs, built adjacent to the city of Gurs, in the region of Aquitaine in the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, 84 kilometres east of the Atlantic coast and 34 kilometres north of the Spanish border.

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