Camp de Gurs,
in southern France, had been a camp for refugees from the
Spanish Civil War. After the French defeat, it became the
largest concentration camp for Jews in France, and a transit
point for deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibór
death camps in Poland. Camp de Gurs was liberated in the
summer of 1944. The French poet Louis Aragon said, "Gurs is
a strange sound, like a moan stuck in the throat."
Below: This
letter from a Jewish prisoner at Camp de Gurs to the
Fédération des
Sociétés Juives de France (FSJF, Federation of French Jewish
Organizations) at Nice, requests a prayer book; a brief note
at the end of the letter says that the requested item was
shipped on March 8, 1941, which is also the date of the
postmark on the attached certificate of mailing. Besides
relief work, FSJF organized anti-Nazi work among Jews, and
created the
Comité General de Défense
(Jewish Defense Committee) in August 1943, which embraced
all underground Jewish organizations including
conservatives, Zionists, and Communists.
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