Aix-en-Provence - Tuilerie des Milles - former internment camp
- department: Bouches-du-Rhône
- town: Aix-en-Provence
- naming: Tuilerie des Milles - former internment camp
- address : Les Milles, chemin de la Badesse, lieudit Les Tuileries
- date: 1912
- protection: Inscription under the title of historical monuments by order of 23 February 2004
- label patrimoine XXe: Circular of 1 March 2001
The tile-brick factory is located in the former town of Milles, 6 km from Aix. Dating from 1882, it is equipped with the latest improvements: three Hoffmann ovens with continuous fire, on a ground on the edge of the river not far from a clay quarry and near the station of Miles, which allows the flow of the products both in the rear-countries than on the port of Marseille. Partially rebuilt around 1912 after a fire, it suffered from 1936, like all the factories of the Séon basin in Marseille, a slowdown and then the temporary closure due to difficulties with foreign trade.
It was requisitioned and used as an internment camp from September 1939 to 1940, first as a regrouping camp for "nationals of the German empire" (German, Austrian, Czech and Hungarian) refugees in the south of France. Among them are the painters Hans Bellmer, Max Ernst, Ferdinand Sringer, Wols and Gustave Erlich, known as "Gus". The wall paintings in the guard’s refectory are attributed to these artists (the refectory is transformed into a carpentry workshop when the tile factory resumes its activities after the war). In 1942, the place served as an internment camp for Jews rounded up in Marseilles: departure camp towards deportation, it is one of the elements of the "final solution". The site is the subject of a Memorial project.
- Editor: Paul Smith, dapa, 1997
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