Memorial Du Camp de Rivesaltes:
Obeisance to the victims

Figure: M. Hedlin - Region Languedoc-Roussillon

North-east view of the memorial, the Pyrenees with the Pic du Canigou in the background

Figure: M. Hedlin - Region Languedoc-Roussillon

Figure: Kevin Dolmaire

The exhibition hall fully in use

Figure: Kevin Dolmaire

Figure: M. Hedlin - Region Languedoc-Roussillon

The lecture hall with stage and ascending seating

Figure: M. Hedlin - Region Languedoc-Roussillon

Figure: Kevin Dolmaire

The access way at the side, it leads from the entrance area of administration passing the permanent exhibition

Figure: Kevin Dolmaire

The surfaces consist of integrally colored architectural concrete. The specialists tried to match the shade of the surrounding terrain as perfect as possible by using ocher oxide pigments

Figure: Kevin Dolmaire

The main entrance. Its two gate wings are also made of architectural concrete, with surfaces treated in the same way as the surrounding walls

Figure: Kevin Dolmaire

The heavy portal leads into a dark vestibule. Associations to a tomb situated in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings come to mind

Figure: Kevin Dolmaire

Figure: Agence Rudy Ricciotti

Layout of the memorial site

Figure: Agence Rudy Ricciotti

The former largest internment camp of the republic was converted into a memorial site in the vicinity of Perpignan in the South of France. For this purpose, a 220m-long, hermetically closed huge building made of ocher-colored architectural concrete was built on the sometime drill ground of the camp.

The ground is characterized by one-story ruined buildings made of fiber-reinforced concrete, providing a hostile impression. These are the remains of the former military barracks built in the 1930s for the colonial army so that the recruits at that time became seasoned to the hot climate, which had been waiting for them during their mission in Africa later. During the Second World War, the military facility became a transit camp for Jews and Roma people, who were interned here first by the pro-Nazi Vichy Regime and then deported to the determination camp in Poland. Yet in the post war time...