Background
After the victory of Francisco Franco's forces over the Spanish Republic on 1 April 1939, many combatants, together with their relatives and other people who feared Franco's repression, fled to France. The French government built various camps to give shelter to these refugees. The most important camp was the one at Gurs, built adjacent to the city of Gurs, in the region of Aquitaine in the department of Pyrénées-Atlantiques, 84 kilometres east of the Atlantic coast and 34 kilometres north of the Spanish border.
For the site they chose an extended hill with a flat back, of clay soil, whose agricultural use was virtually nil: a little bit of corn and pasture for cattle. Construction began on 15 March 1939, and was still incomplete when the first group of refugees arrived on 4 April.
Read more about this topic: Gurs Internment Camp
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