Argelers concentration camp

The camp was located near the Mediterranean coast at the foot of the northern side of the Albera Massif in Roussillon, 8 km north of the French-Spanish border.

[5] Republican military leaders such as Modesto, commander of the 4th Division and Líster, commander of the 11th Division of the elite V Army Corps, had first seen the retreat to France of the remainder of the Ebro Army as part of a tactical evacuation, with the aim of regrouping these units with the remaining units of the last area under Republican control in order to continue the resistance.

All the veteran survivors of the 11th Division, together with all Republican military, were disarmed and swiftly interned in French concentration camps immediately after crossing its border.

[7] The conditions were very poor in this concentration camp, there were no latrines, running water, huts or any kind of shelter, apart from holes in the ground dug by inmates.

The French government went on to found internment camps all along the northern foot of the Pyrenees to relieve the grim conditions at Argelès.

Refugees in the camp, 1939
Last area under Republican control after the Fall of Catalonia in February 1939. French authorities would not allow Spanish Republican military units to be transferred to this zone after having entered France.
Commemorative monument for the survivors of the retirada (retreat).