In Their Words: Jewish Refugees and the French Internment Camp System

• In Event: Critical Crossroads: Jewish Responses and Experiences during the Refugee Crises of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

During the refugee crisis of the 1930s, thousands of Jews fled persecution and sought safe haven in France. France, long known for its republican legacy, was no longer the land of asylum that these refugees had hoped to find. Escalating anti-Semitism and fluctuating immigration policies created an environment inhospitable to those seeking resettlement. Jewish refugees continued to arrive in France even though residency papers were hard to attain and foreigners, if caught without valid papers, were incarcerated or expulsed from the country. By 1939, the French government established internment camps, which detained refugees alongside suspected Nazi supporters, and held screening commissions to ascertain whether internees were liable to work against French interests. The situation for refugees in France was bleak and throughout the country, internment camps were populated with foreigners living in poor conditions and despairing for their futures.
Drawing from recently-released letters housed at the Alliance Israélite Universelle and sources in the Archives Nationales de France, this paper approaches the topic of refugees and the internment camp system from a close-to-the-ground perspective. It will examine the rich testimonies contained in these letters, which date from 1939 into the early months of 1940. With the sharp focus that this methodology affords, this concise study departs from analyses that tend to emphasize French policies or organizations and gives to voice to the people held in centers across France. It will shed light on a range of experiences for internees, whose futures were all the more uncertain once war began on 1 September 1939 and France issued a decret-loi that officially classified refugees as enemy subjects. The letters offer an array of information about daily life, some of which the French government was none too eager to share with the general public, such as lack of potable water or unhealthy sleeping quarters in different centers. In examining the contents of these first-hand accounts, many of which were written with the purpose of securing release, this paper furthermore will consider the means that interned refugees employed to intervene on their own behalf and gain liberation.

author

• Meredith Scott-Weaver, University of Delaware