Ilag

At the end of 1940, 2,400 women, mostly British, were interned in the Vauban barracks and another 500 old and sick in the St. Jacques hospital close by.

The camp was located in the old barracks built in the middle of the 19th century at Saint-Denis, close to Paris.

The meagre food rations were augmented by the International Red Cross packages, so that, overall, their diet was satisfactory.

[1] Also called Frontstalag 121,[2] this was one of the more hospitable internment camps as it was located in requisitioned hotels in this spa near Epinal in the Department Vosges.

[2] A camp in Liebenau [de], near Meckenbeuren in Württemberg, on Lake Constance, opened in 1940 and operated until 1945.

On Adolf Hitler's orders about 700 of the patients were exterminated by injection under a program retrospectively named Aktion T4.

It consisted of 23 concrete huts that had previously served as Oflag V-B for officers who were prisoner of war.

Initially, the camp was administered by the German Army, but in the spring of 1943 the administration was transferred to the Interior Ministry; this caused a worsening of food rations.

Conditions were less satisfactory because it was located in a three-story 18th-century castle that had recently been a monastery, and the rooms were dark and damp.

[citation needed] Frank Stroobant, the camp senior, was invited in April 1943 to attend an inspection in the forest of Katyn in Russia where a massacre of 22,000, mainly Polish army and police officers, by Soviet forces had been uncovered.

[9]: 195  The moral view of whether work should be done was strongly debated in the camp, but as everyone was a private individual, it was up to each person to make their own decision.

[8]: 82 In April 1944, Laufen held 459 British internees (417 Channel Islanders) and 120 Americans, including Josef Nassy.