The German Army established internment camps in World War II to hold Allied civilians captured in occupied territory. These civilians included American and British citizens caught in Europe as World War II began, as well as citizens of the Channel Islands. The Germans hoped to exchange civilians-including Jews- for German nationals who were held in Allied countries. They were interned in Laufen and Tittmoning in Bavaria, and Camp Vittel, which was located in the Vosges mountains in France. Most of the documents held by these aliens were eventually declared invalid by the Nazis toward the end of 1943, and many were transported to Drancy and Auschwitz in 1944 where they were murdered.
France had a great many internment camps holding political prisoners, Jews, and Romanies. Jews-both citizens of France and foreigners- became victims of the anti-Semitic policies of Petain's collaborationist Vichy regime. Camp de Gurs in the Pyrenees was created for Spanish refugees, but many German Jews who fled the Nazis were interned here as well. Jews were interned in des Milles, Recebedou, de Noe, Ferramonti di Tarsia, and Rivesaltes and many others. Recebedou was an Internment Camp created in February 1941 to hold Jewish refugees-many fleeing the occupied zone of France- and Spanish anti-fascists for deportation to Drancy transit camp and thence to the extermination camps: 349 Jews were deported to Drancy from here. Rivesaltes submitted more than 2200 Jews-including 110 children - to Auschwitz by way of Drancy in 1942: all were murdered.
The British government established internment camps throughout the British Empire to confine "enemy aliens"; for example, Tatura Internment Camp in Australia. Alexander Distler, a Jewish refugee from Austria, found himself dispatched to several camps for "enemy aliens" in Canada. There were camps in Mauritius, India, and the Isle of Man. Some refugees were allowed to enter the United States: Camp Oswego, New York; Bismark, North Dakota; and several in Texas. The British also established detention camps in Cyprus, Atilt, and Eritrea to prevent refugees from the Holocaust from entering Mandatory Palestine.
--Michael D. Bulmash, K1966
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