Exile and Deportees Day 2025

School Activity

Over 500 high school students will take part in this year’s Exile and Deportees Day commemoration in Catalonia, visiting key memory sites along the Catalonia-France border on February 3.

The one-day event includes small-group visits to the Memorial Museum of Exile (MUME) in La Jonquera, the Walter Benjamin Memorial in Portbou, Antonio Machado’s grave in Collioure, and La Mina Canta, a former talc mine where Prado Museum paintings were stored at the start of the Spanish Civil War.

The activity will conclude on the beach of Argelès-sur-Mer, the site of the first civilian camp in France, established to hold the massive wave of Republican refugees during La Retirada (the Retreat).

This annual initiative is organized by the Exile, Deportation, and Holocaust working group of Alt Empordà, in collaboration with MUME, FFREEE, the City Council of Argelès-sur-Mer, and the EUROM.

Exilis 2025 | EUROM Networking

Background

In the final stage of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), on February 10, 1939, General Franco’s forces completed their occupation of Catalonia. Facing the Francoist advance, over 450,000 Spanish Republicans fled across the border into France in what became known as La Retirada (the Retreat).

A few months earlier, on November 12, 1938, the government of Édouard Daladier in France had passed a Decree-Law allowing the internment of “undesirable foreigners” under permanent surveillance. This law provided the legal framework for the later imprisonment of some 350,000 exiled Spanish Republicans in hastily built concentration camps, many located in the Roussillon region.

The Argelès-sur-Mer refugee camp was the first of these civilian camps. Located on a 100-hectare stretch of coastline, construction began just days before the French authorities opened the border. By March 1, 1939, 74,000 refugees, both civilians and soldiers, were confined to a vast, barren beach surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by colonial troops of the French navy. The lack of shelter, unsanitary water supply, and food shortages, combined with the already fragile health of the exiles, led to widespread disease and a sharp rise in mortality.

With the outbreak of World War II, the camp began to hold additional groups, including “enemy residents,” foreign Jews, and political refugees—particularly Germans and Austrians. Under the collaborationist Vichy regime, a separate sector for Jewish prisoners was later established. Until then, the only official distinction had been between civilians and soldiers.

Over time, the number of Spanish Republicans decreased due to forced repatriation, enlistment in the Foreign Workers Companies, or service in the Regiments in Motion of Voluntary Foreigners. By March 1941, around 14,000 prisoners remained in Argelès. They were gradually transferred to newer camps, such as Rivesaltes and Barcarès. The camp began to be dismantled in July 1941 and was officially closed in December 1941.

When

February 3, 2025
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