Château de La Hille in Montégut-Plantaurel, near Pailhès, preserves the memory of one of the darkest episodes in the history of Ariège; a hundred Jewish children, aged between 5 and 16, were the victims of the Vichy administration. Having become orphans following the Crystal Night and the wave of anti-Semitic operations that spread across Nazi Germany, a number of Jewish German children fled to England, Belgium and France where they were taken in by charitable organisations.

Chased out of Belgium by the Wehrmacht offensive in May 1940, a hundred of them, after a six-day journey in animal lorries, reached Villefranche de Lauragais and then Seyre. On their arrival, they were taken in by the mayor, the château owner and the French Red Cross. The lack of food and the harsh winter of 1940-1941 forced the group to go to Château de La Hille in Montégut-Plantaurel, half way between Toulouse and the principality of Andorra.

In the summer of 1941, due to the intervention of the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), 20 of the youngest were taken to the United States and two others were saved by relatives in America.

In August 1942, the forty-five oldest were arrested by French police and interned in the Le Vernet camp. The Swiss government intervened and secured their release from Vichy. The children then tried to flee to Switzerland with the help of the headmistress and Anne-Marie Piguet (the head of an escape network to Switzerland).

Those who were held back by border guards and returned to La Hille tried to reach Spain over the Pyrenees. Those less fortunate were sold by people-smugglers to the Germans and Franco before being deported. Others ended up joining the French maquis (resistance fighters). A commemorative stele was erected on 17 September 2000 and a museum relating the history has been set up in the château.

As a reminder of the role of a safe haven, a monument to the Rights of Man was erected on common land in 1993.

A commemorative plaque in the château

The wording on the commemorative plaque mounted near Château de La Hille tells of the journey taken by the German Jewish children persecuted by the Nazi regime who became victims of the Vichy administration, many of whom survived thanks to the support of the Red Cross and local residents. Jacques Roth, a former resident and now a writer, was the author:

"In the darkest hours of the 20th century, the five hundred year old Château de la Hille provided a haven of peace for a hundred Jewish refugee children from Germany, fleeing from the terror and racial hatred which was spreading in waves across Holland, Belgium and a large part of France. Having arrived at the château in 1941, they lived there surrounded by the benevolence of the local residents and in the good care of a group of young Swiss Red Cross workers, Aid to Children: Maurice and Eléonore Dubois, Rösli Näf, Eugen Lyrer and Emma Ott. Their only too brief respite ended with the raids of August 1942, when the forty or so over sixteen years old were arrested by the police and taken to the le Vernet Camp in Ariège, the first stage of their journey to the death camps to which they were destined. Alerted to the fact, Mister Dubois, the director of the organisation, came immediately to Vichy where he managed to break down the door of the highest State police officer and succeeded in rescuing "his children", as well as the adults accompanying them, from deportation. The "Hillois" were able to return to their château. However, the feeling of security never returned. In November 1942, with the arrival of German troops across the whole country and sensing the threat once again, the older ones started to disperse. Twenty-five of them tried to reach Switzerland. Twenty succeeded but five were arrested. Ten sought their salvation by taking the shortest route over the Pyrenees but five did not make it. Others were taken in by local farmers. Some of the young girls found sanctuary in a convent. Some joined the maquis and one of them was killed by enemy bullets. Of the ten "Hillois" deported to Auschwitz, just one survived. Throughout its history, the château has never been the setting for an armed battle, but in this last episode it was witness to the victory of humanity over barbarity. The elders of la Hille say thank you to it, as well as to the residents of Montégut Plantaurel and its surrounding area."

Mairie of Montégut-Plantaurel

09120 Montégut-Plantaurel

Tel.: + 33 (0) 5 61 05 35 83

e-mail: mairie.montegut-plantaurel@wanadoo.fr

Varilhes Tourist Information Office

3 avenue Louis-Siret

09120 VARILHES

Tel.: + 33 (0) 5.61.60.55.54

Fax: + 33 (0) 5.61.60.55.54

e-mail: office-tourisme.varilhes@wanadoo.fr

This vast building behind a glass front is nestled in greenery and overlooks the valley below. It towers skyward a stone's throw from Schirmeck. And it casts light on one of history's rambling episodes, and on the suffering and self-sacrifice that episode brought upon thousands of men, women and children. The amazing architecture and setting convey the oft-misconstrued story of an area that jolted from one country to another as the border it skirts shifted. The 3000 sq m museum casts light on this hazy period between 1870 and the aftermath of WWII, which weighs upon this region's identity. And, as efforts to reconcile France and Germany were born from efforts to root peace across Europe, this memorial also showcases the foundations of European construction.

When you leave the glass-walled hall, you get the feeling you are descending into history's depths. At the foot of the sombre steps, you will find a staggering, cathedral-sized room. The 12-metre-high walls on either side bear 148 portraits of men and women from Alsace and Moselle, spanning every generation and every walk of life. They all have names. It might be someone's piercing gaze, engaging hairdo or original dress, but something will no doubt catch your eye. But this room, first and foremost, will put a face on textbook history. The stories this memorial tells, in other words, are not about statistics and remote people in a remote land. They are about children, grandparents, young women. About the children, grandparents and young women in that room. They will speak to you over the audio guide. They speak French, German and Alsatian. They tell you what happened over those 70 dissonant years. They tell you their story.
Hitler's shuddering voice rings out as you step into a rebuilt village station. Posters luring you to tourist destinations hang alongside evacuation orders. You take a seat in a train packed with luggage and personal belongings. A film on the wagon wall shows how 430,000 of Alsace's and Moselle's people were transferred to Southwest France. On the opposite wall, a corridor leads to a fort on the Maginot Line. The white walls strewn with electric wires, floor tracks, dormitories and armoured doors explain are chilling. The instructions aimed at drafted soldiers, speech excerpts and images from the front exude this peculiar war's atmosphere.
After the documents stating the terms of the occupation and de-facto annexation under the Third Reich, you will walk into a circling corridor displaying street name boards. The first ones are in French first, the last ones in German. The flags parading overhead surreptitiously transmute from France's red, white and blue to swastikas.
Then you reach a forward-tilting typically Germanic building. The only way forward is through this oppressive, half-prison, half-bureaucratic universe. Desks on either side show the population brought to heel and enlisted by force. Struthof Camp bodes ill at a distance.
The barbed wire, army camps, pale lights and watchtowers in the next room will give you a glimpse of what concentration camps felt like. Photos, papers and audiovisual documents in this bleak universe also speak of the resistance and of escaping into France.
You walk across this vast room on a 3.5-metre-high footbridge. The Vosges forest pines underfoot are a reminder that people crossing the border over the neighbouring heights were doing so illicitly. The scenery is scarred by war. Bombs have disfigured the land. Everything is littered with disfigured bicycles and car wrecks, strewn petrol drums, and such like debris. Bombers tear through the sky. A house crumbles. And images on the wall speak of the German retreat and the Landings. Liberation nears.
The next room is much more soothing. The floor is even. Towering columns mirror the return of justice and truth. This room tells the story of the Oradour massacre trials in Bordeaux. The red walls seem lined with drawers holding the hundreds of files under review. A well of images shows the process and purge.
The room before last is white and bathed in light. It is a breath of fresh air. Lit blocks show French- German reconciliation and European construction. This soothing and cheerful room leads to a projection room screening a film by Alain Jérôme. Then, you walk back into the vast transparent hall and esplanade, whence you can look out onto stunning views over the Vosges massif. And, across the valley, see Struthof camp and the European Centre on Resistance and Deportation (Centre Européen du Résistant Déporté).
Opening hours The Alsace Moselle Memorial is open from 10.00 am to 6.30 pm in winter and from 10.00 am to 7.00 pm in summer. Tickets are on sale until one hour before closing time. Admission Full fare: €10 Reduced fare: €8 Families (two adults and children): €23 Tours with audio guides Disabled-visitor access Shop Bar / Tearoom Educational Office - Workshops The Educational Office caters for school groups (with an educational director and assigned professor).

Some of them managed to cross the border into Spain and Andorra; the others were taken and transferred to Camp du Vernet on the night of 26 August 1942. During the first roundup, around 200 people were arrested and interned before being transported to Auschwitz.

A second roundup took place between 9 and 11 January 1943: 266 Jews were arrested. On the bend in La croix du Ruisseau, a stele pays tribute to the 640 men, women and children sent to live in Aulus-les-Bains in 1942 and those arrested during the two roundups.

Quelques lieux remarquables

• La maison du docteur Faure, médecin thermal, père d'Edgar Faure (1908-1988), écrivain et homme politique
• Le monument aux morts. On y lit beaucoup de noms identiques avec à côté leur sobriquet correspondant le plus souvent au nom de la maison où ils vivaient 
• L'Office du Tourisme. Sur l'ancien emplacement de l'hôtel du Midi construit en 1866, le Grand hôtel, qui a fonctionné jusqu'en 1939, puis a été réquisitionné pendant la guerre. Après la Libération, en raison de son état de délabrement, il n'est plus utilisé que comme salle de café et de réunions, avant d'être démoli dans les années quatre-vingt-dix
• L'Hôtel Majestic. Lorsque, le 11 novembre 1942, l'armée allemande a envahi la zone Sud, elle a établi son cantonnement à l'Hôtel Majestic.

01 - Les Neufs Fonts

02 - Carrière des Frouns

03 - Oratoire St Vincent

04 - Salle d'animation du Camping ancienne scierie

05 - Emplacement de l'ancien Casino

06 - Colonie de la Ville de Toulouse anciens Hôtels du Parc

07 - Ancienne usine à Gaz

08 - Maison du Dr Faure

09 - Les Bemèdes ancienne maison Crouzat

10 - Hôtel de France

11 - Hôtel Georges

12 - Grand Hôtel

13 - Allée des Bains

14 - Parc Thermal

16 - Hôtel Beauséjour

17 - Hôtel Majestic

18 - Villa les Bains ancien Hôtel des Bains

19 - Hôtel La Terrasse

20 - Monument aux Morts

21 - Hôtel Les Oussaillès ancienne Maison Charrue

22 - Gîte d'Etape ancien Presbytère

23 - Eglise d'Aulus

25 - Oratoire St Bernard de Menton

26 - La Croix du Ruisseau

27 - Le Moulin

28 - Office de Tourisme emplacement Hôtel du Midi

29 - Aulus La Trappe

Mairie d'Aulus-les-Bains

Place de la Mairie 09410 Aulus-les-Bains

Tél. : 05 61 96 00 87

Bureau d'Aulus-les-Bains

09410 Aulus-les-Bains

Tél. : 05 61 96 00 01

Antenne de l'Office de tourisme de Haut-Couserans

09140 Aulus-les-Bains

tél. 05.61.96.02.22

fax : 05.61.96.01.79

e-mail : aulus-les-bains@worldonline.fr

The establishment is a joint effort by the Departmental Association of Deportees, Prisoners and Resistance Fighters, the Departmental Association of Patriotic Deportees, Prisoners and Resistance Fighters, and the town of Varilhes.

Decorated with the Cross of War on 11 November 1948, it was described as a "town that during the Occupation played an active part in the fight against the enemy.”

The great services provided by the population to the Resistance and the Allied cause provoked reprisals from the Occupier who carried out a huge number of deportations. Twenty-two of its sons gave their life for France. (Max Lejeune, Secretary of State for the War Armed Forces).

This tribute to history and remembrance gives an illustrated and comprehensive vision of the major steps of deportation and internment between 1933 and 1945.

Four tableau present the concentration camp system to visitors:

A first part is dedicated to the emergence of the Nazi concentration camps between 1933 and 1939.

A second part highlights the beginnings of the deportation of the Jews in France from 1940 to 1942 (the Vichy Regime, the exclusion of the Jews, the roundups and imprisonment, the repression of the opponents).

A third part explains the organisation of the Deportation between 1942 and 1944 (the turning point of 1942, the departure from France, the organisation of the concentration camps, the camp: a place of order without entitlement, omnipresent death, the final solution, the Resistance).

The last theme is the end of the camps and the period of the trials (evacuation and liberation of the camps, the homecoming to France, the trials).

Ariége Museum of Deportation and Internment

Hôtel de Ville de Varilhes

Tel: 05.61.60.73.24

Museum website

Opening times

The Museum is open Wednesdays and Saturdays (2-6 pm) 

Open to school groups on weekdays, please enquire

Tourist Information Office

3 avenue Louis-Siret - 09120 Varilhes

Tel: 05.61.60.55.54

Fax: +33 (0)5 61 60 55 54

Email: office-tourisme.varilhes@wanadoo.fr 

Constructed in a month and a half on eighty hectares of land on the heath land of Gurs, the internment camp originally had about four hundred huts and was enclosed by a double barbed wire fence.

Spanish Refugees The "reception centre" was considered by the authorities of the Third Republic to be operational from April 1939. Several thousand Spanish refugees, mostly soldiers from the Spanish Republican Army and volunteers from the international Brigades, were sent there. The buildings, which were supposed to be temporary, were quickly inundated with mud and the poor living conditions claimed numerous victims.
The "undesirables" From May 1940 onwards, the Vichy regime sent refugees arrested in the towns of Paris and Bordeaux, French political activists and Basque political refugees, to be interned at the Gurs camp. The Jews The Statute on Jews, issued on the 3rd October 1940 led to their large-scale internment from the autumn of 1940. Natives of France, Germany's Baden province or central Europe, for many of them Gurs was the last stop before the Nazi extermination camps: indeed, between August 1942 and March 1943, six convoys took several thousand internees from Gurs to the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. After the Liberation, the camp was used as a place of detention for collaborators and German prisoners. Closed on the 31st December 1945, the site was radically altered from 1946 onwards, with the sale and destruction of the huts, followed by the planting of a forest in an attempt to forget the history of a camp that had been run from start to finish by the French authorities.
The national memorial In 1994 the national memorial of the internment camp at Gurs was inaugurated. The Israeli artist Dani Karavan designed it as a journey of reflection in three parts on internment in the Vichy camps. - At the end of the camp's central thoroughfare, the frame of a hut reminds visitors of the harsh living conditions of the internees - more than sixty people were crammed into each of these cramped buildings.
- a 180-metre long railway track stretches from this hut to symbolise the ultimate journey to the death camps, the final destination of many Gurs internees.
- At the entrance to the camp, the rails end abruptly at a concrete slab with barbed wire around it, representing the Nazi concentration and extermination camps.
The camp cemetery There are more than a thousand graves of those internees who died at the Gurs camp between 1939 and 1943. Restored in 1962 by the towns and the Hebrew Consistory of the Baden province, it has two steles: one paying tribute to the Spanish and the Brigadista, and the other dedicated to the memory of the Jews, most of whom were expelled by the Nazis from the Baden province in October 1940 before the decision on the final solution.
The camp's central thoroughfare and adjacent paths The camp road links the former camp entrance on the route de Mauléon with the cemetery and stretches about two kilometres, parallel to the D 936. On each side of this central thoroughfare, old paths, paved by the internees with shingle from the mountain streams of the Oloron, can still be seen. In the middle of the trees and shrubbery that now cover the site, visitors can also see some memorial structures that were created in 2002 by sixth-form classes from a business college specialising in careers in the building trade. Modelled on the camp's former wooden huts, several "virtual huts" have been constructed using cords to remind us that the forest there today must not try to hide the camp of yesterday.
The Gurs camp association Tour Carrère 25 avenue du Loup 64000 PAU Email administrator: abauzit99@orange.fr Tours The camp and its memorial are permanently open. Entry is unrestricted and free of charge. Access 90 km from Bayonne via Peyrehoarde and Escos on the A 64/E 80 (exit no. 6 - Peyrehoarde) and then the D 936. 45 km from Pau via Tarsacq, Noguères, and Mourenx, on the D 2, the D 33, the D 281, the D 111, the D 947 and then the D 936. 65 km from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on the D 933 towards Sauveterre-de-Béarn, then the D 936. 6 km from Navarrenx on the D 947 and then the D 936.

The Centre was created on the initiative of Marie Michelet, wife of Edmond Michelet, and the Fraternité Edmond Michelet association. The project took shape in the early 1970s.

The Michelet family home was donated to the Association in order to set up the establishment, in partnership with the town of Brive-la-Gaillarde, to study events that occurred in the Second World War, in particular the Resistance and deportation. The Centre Edmond Michelet was inaugurated on 8th May 1976.

From the outset, the project's aim was to be a different memorial. Thus, Marie Michelet always refused that the establishment be a fixed memorial; she wanted it to be a living place, with the permanent exhibition running alongside a space for studies and reflection. This ambition led to the current name of "centre of studies".

Composition:

The establishment consists of a museum, a library and a video library, an archive and documentation section, an events area with permanent exhibitions, mobile exhibitions, conferences and a yearly seminar, and a learning department.

The archive service comprises:

- The Edmond Michelet and Etienne Borne collections

- Collections of former Résistance members, deportees and personalities

- A photo library

- Old newspapers and magazines

The museum has 10 rooms devoted to:

- Edmond Michelet, the Résistance member and the man of State

- The Résistance

- The occupation

- The deportation

- Human Rights

- Propaganda in images

An audio-guide is available for the visit.

The exhibition presents propaganda posters, of which the centre owns a record number in France (around 350) and which give an understanding of the context civilians had to face during the occupation. This museum develops the usual themes of museums dedicated to this period, but takes an object-focused approach.

Centre Edmond Michelet

4 rue Champanatier

19100 Brive la Gaillarde

Tél. : 05 55 74 06 08

museemichelet@brive.fr

Open every day except Sundays and national holidays, from 10 am to 12 pm and 2 pm to 6 pm.

Free entry

Guided tour on request for groups

Site du Centre Edmond Michelet

The citadel of Besançon, Vauban's masterwork, was built between 1668 and 1711 and covers 11 hectares. It looks down from a height of more than 100 metres on the old town, which is nestled in a magnificent loop formed by a meander of the Doubs river. The citadel is a remarkably restored fortress, which is nowadays a unique place of great cultural and tourist importance that enables visitors to experience history and life.

The Resistance and Deportation Museum, which is housed in the enclosure of the citadel, takes the visitor on a voyage through history organised around 20 exhibition halls, half of which are dedicated to Nazism, Nazi repression and the concentration camps. It also contains a documentation centre and educational service. Finally, visitors can also see an exhibition of paintings by Jean DALIGAULT made on scraps of paper that were kept by surviving comrades. Jean DALIGAULT was deported to and executed in Dachau in March 1944. There is also an exhibition of rough sketches made while on the move by Léon DELARBRE, a member of the Resistance arrested in 1944 and deported to Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dora and Bergen-Belsen.

Tourist information: /33 (0)3 81 87 83 33

E-mail: :sem.lacitadelle@besancon.com 

Opening hours The citadel is open daily, except on 25 December and 1 January: 9:00 to 19:00 from July 5 -August 31 9:00 to 18:00 from 29 March to 4 July and 31 August 24 October 10:00 to 17:00 in low season.

Opening hours may be subject to slight amendments. Recommended duration of visit: At least half a day on site. Museums closed on Tuesdays between All Saints' Day and Easter.

Dogs are not permitted.

Admission Adults: 8.20 € Concession: 6.80 € Children (4 -14 years): 4.60 € Children (-4 years) Free. Group and regular visitor rates are also available.

The Resistance and Deportation Museum Free for school groups. Open all year round.

The Resistance and Deportation Museum La Citadelle 25000 BESANÇON - Telephone. /33 (0)3 81 83 37 14

Internment of the Gypsies

In May 1941, the Feldkommandantur for Besançon decided to apply the decree passed on 4th October 1940 forcing travelling people in the occupied zone to be held together in internment camps. This measure was initially aimed at those in the Belfort, Doubs, Haute-Saône and Jura areas. It was then extended to cover those in the Côte-d'Or, Haute-Marne, Saône-et-Loire and Ain Departements. Thus, on 24th June 1941, the first travellers from Belfort were sent to the Châtelain and Châtelaine forest houses belonging to the Chaux estate, 22 km from Dôle. But this location quickly proved unsuitable. Insufficient accommodation and water that was unfit to drink caused the German authorities to transfer the Gypsies to the Arc-et-Senans Saltworks on 1st September 1941.
Built by architect Claude Nicolas LEDOUX, and owned by the Doubs Departement since 1927, the Royal Saltworks at that time was in a very poor state of repair despite initial restoration work carried out between 1930 and 1936. Among other things it had already been used as an assembly centre for Spanish Republicans between February and October 1939, before being requisitioned by the French Army during the Phoney War. The Germans then took possession of the place during the first half of 1941, until their departure. Until 15th May 1942, the status of the Arc-et-Senans camp, run by four Customs Officers, was that of an assembly centre. In effect, this meant that the Gypsies, grouped into whole families, could leave the camp area, through the use of exit passes. This period was also notable for the absence of common buildings which meant that the travelling people had to live by their own means. Thus, in order to support their families, some adults went to work in neighbouring businesses such as engineering firm UMAS (Union métallurgique d'Arc-et-Senans) or the Todt organisation. In addition, the sanitation was appalling; the showers were unusable, the toilets did not work and there were inadequate fresh water supplies... The lack of hygiene gave rise to diseases such as scabies, and many gypsies had to be transferred to the hospitals in Besançon for treatment. Meanwhile, an excessive number of escapes and exit passes that were too freely issued led to many complaints from the inhabitants of Arc-et-Senans. And on 15th May 1942, the order was given for the Royal Saltworks to become an internment camp. The changes were radical; people were no longer permitted to leave and as a result some hitherto absent facilities were rapidly installed. These included soup-kitchen style catering facilities, as well as an infirmary and a school able to take the 58 children registered at the camp. Despite these transformations, the Gypsy population still lived in difficult conditions. A report issued by the Camp Governor in August 1943, revealed that of the 185 internees, 44 suffered from skin complaints: infected wounds, abscesses, varicose ulcers, etc. Furthermore, the escapes continued. This undoubtedly led to the closure of the camp at Arc-et-Senans on 11th September 1943 and the transfer of the Gypsy families to the Jargeau internment camp in the Loiret region. This dramatic episode in the history of the Royal Saltworks has not been forgotten. On 11th and 12th March 1999 - as part of a major event entitled "A Look at Travelling People", organised by the Institut Claude Nicolas LEDOUX - a seminar was held at the Royal Saltworks on the theme "The Arc-et-Senans internment camp: its part in the discriminatory treatment of Gypsies". Finally, on 9th April 1999, a commemorative plaque was placed at the entrance to the Saltworks in tribute to the interned families.

Saline Royale Institut Claude-Nicolas Ledoux Département Tourisme et Publics 25610 Arc et Senans Tél.: + 33 (0)3 81 54 45 45 Fax: + 33 (0)3 81 54 45 46