The Tortuous Path to Memorializing France's World War II-Era Internment Camps

This dissertation examines memorialization efforts at the former World War II–era internment camps of Gurs, Les Milles, and Drancy in France. It examines how, when, and where the French Government decided to produce and promote sites of historical remembrance in the postwar era. Primarily, this dissertation assesses why Gurs is still awaiting a memorial museum while Drancy and Les Milles received in situ museums in 2012. Using predominantly newspapers, but also governmental documents, press releases, letters, and more, this study reveals that the “memorialization process” at these three camps first largely paralleled the French Government’s silence in regard to its own complicity in the Holocaust. Then, after Jacques Chirac’s 1995 speech acknowledging the French Government’s guilt in the Holocaust, the state still belatedly supported museum projects that grassroots memorial agents started. Gurs is still awaiting a memorial museum chiefly because of its location, but other related factors such as demographics, a failure to coalesce leadership, a paucity of funding, and a dearth of regional and state support contributed to its delay in memorialization. This dissertation highlights the importance of place in memorialization efforts and demonstrates the complicated nature of historical remembrance and the compromises needed to build memorial museums.