Fresnes Prison

Fresnes Prison (Centre pénitentiaire de Fresnes) is the second largest prison in France, located in the town of Fresnes, Val-de-Marne South of Paris. It comprises a large men's prison (maison d'arrêt) of about 1200 cells, a smaller one for women and a penitentiary hospital.

Fresnes is one of the three main prisons of the Paris area, the Fleury-Mérogis Prison (Europe's largest prison) and the La Santé Prison (located in the centre of Paris) being the other two.

The prison was constructed between 1895 and 1898 according to a design devised by the architect, Henri Poussin. An example of the so-called "telephone-pole design," the facility was radically different from previous prisons. At Fresnes prison, for the first time, cell houses extended crosswise from a central corridor. The design, a typical example of which is the Riker's Island prison in New York City, was used extensively in North America for much of the next century.

During World War II, Fresnes prison was used by the Germans to house captured British SOE agents and members of the French Resistance. Held in horrific conditions, these prisoners were tortured, and some, such as Berty Albrecht (1893–1943), co-founder of the Combat movement, died there. As soon as the Allied forces broke through at Normandy and fought their way to liberate Paris, the Gestapo peremptorily killed prisoners at Fresnes. An example was Jewish resistance fighter Marianne Cohn, who was murdered by axe wielding militants on 8 July 1944, and Suzanne Spaak, who was executed there on 12 August, less than two weeks before the city was liberated. Christopher Burney (1917–1980) was freed in 1945, and published Solitary Confinement, an account of his fifteen months there.

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