F07_P07: Concentration Camp de Gurs
1941 June 23, Front side - Letter from Jewish prisoner at Camp de Gurs concentration camp to Federation of French Jewish Organizations, FSJF.
Tan letter (appears orange via scan) with cursive handwriting in German using pencil. At the top is a notice overlayed on top of the document used to notify the the requested item was shipped. At the bottom is the date stamped in purple ink as June 23, 1941. To the right is the number "39174" stamped in red. The foundation is promptly working to update this scan.
Name/Title
F07_P07: Concentration Camp de GursEntry/Object ID
2007.7.7Scope and Content
1941 June 23, letter from Jewish prisoner at Camp de Gurs concentration camp to Federation of French Jewish Organizations, FSJF.Context
Camp de Gurs, in southern France, had been a camp for refugees from the Spanish Civil War. After the French defeat, it became the largest concentration camp for Jews in France, and a transit point for deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibór death camps in Poland. Camp de Gurs was liberated in the summer of 1944. The French poet Louis Aragon said, "Gurs is a strange sound, like a moan stuck in the throat." This letter from a Jewish prisoner at Camp de Gurs to the Fédération des Sociétés Juives de France (FSJF, Federation of French Jewish Organizations) at Nice, requests a prayer book; a brief note at the end of the letter says that the requested item was shipped on March 8, 1941, which is also the date of the postmark on the attached certificate of mailing. Besides relief work, FSJf organized anti-Nazi work among Jews, and created the Comité Général de Défense (Jewish Defense Committee) in August 1943, which embraced all underground Jewish organizations including conservatives, Zionists, and Communists.Collection
Nazi Scourge I: Primary ExhibitionCategory
Letter
Philatelic Material