Gurs is a small village in the south of France, at the foot of the Pyrenees. In the spring of 1939, a huge town of barracks was built on a large plot of fallow land, in the same vicinity as the Spanish refugees who had crossed the Pyrenees at the end of the Spanish Civil War were. Gurs became the largest internment camp in France. The camp existed for almost seven years.

 

Over 60,000 undesirables were temporarily interned there in several waves: first Republican refugees and volunteer fighters for Spain from over fifty countries, then undesirable women and political suspects and finally, between 1940 and 1944, thousands of Jews. 3907 of them were then deported from Gurs to Auschwitz and murdered. The non-Jewish internees generally survived the camp. Others fled to Portugal, then overseas, and a few to Switzerland.

 

Gurs was a place of horror, misery and humiliation. It became the symbol of the darkest years in the history of our continent in the last century. After a long history of French efforts to erase the memories of Gurs, the site is now a memorial against oblivion. Thanks to the efforts of many German, Spanish and French people, the history of Gurs is now well documented. The testimony of the victims who lived through the horror and that of the volunteers who witnessed it have contributed to this.

 

Elsbeth Kasser was one of them. Her collection has itself become a memorial against oblivion. In addition to a modest memorial and a cemetery, the site of the former camp today contains a barrack and a memorial stone in memory of her work.