Event History
Les Milles, the largest of the French transit camps in the Bouches-du-Rhône, housed refugees who were classified as having an "imminent chance" of emigration. Situated in a community of the same name about 90 km. north of Marseilles, Les Milles was chosen for its proximity to the French port and the many foreign consulates located there. The camp, which was first opened in September 1939 to intern foreign nationals, was established in an abandoned brickworks known as the Tuilerie de la Mediterranée, consisting of twenty factory buildings surrounded by barbed wire. After October 1940 Les Milles was designated as an assembly center for refugees in transit to other countries. Most of these were German and Austrian Jews who had been expelled in May 1940 from Belgium and northern France. Another sizable group were Jews from Baden and the Saarland who had been rounded-up as part of Aktion Bürckel on October 22-23, 1940 and sent to France. Stateless Polish Jews constituted another large sub-group of the inmate population. More than 1,000 prisoners were interned at Les Milles at any one time. They lived in substandard conditions that deteriorated considerably as the war progressed. Prisoners suffered from exposure to severe heat and cold, shortages of food and clothing, lack of sanitation facilities, and disease. In addition, their spirits were crushed by their isolation from the outside world and the lack of things to do in the camp. All the inmates at Les Milles were men. The women who later appear on the camp rolls were the wives of prisoners who joined their husbands just prior to their deportation in the summer of 1942. Though the refugees who were interned at Les Milles were supposed to be on the verge of emigration, many were unable to surmount the various legal and bureaucratic hurdles that were put in their path. Those that were unable to complete the process in time became a primary target for Vichy authorities seeking to fill the new quota mandated by Eichmann in the summer of 1942 that 50,000 Jews from the Unoccupied Zone be delivered for labor service to Auschwitz. In all, 1,439 Jews were deported from Les Milles in the summer and fall of 1942, not including those who had been transferred to Gurs and Rivesaltes and deported from there. Les Milles was officially closed in November 1942 after the Vichy government order of November 8 terminated the issuing of all exit visas. Three days later the Germans occupied southern France.
[Sources: Ryan, Donna Frances, Vichy and the Jews: The Example of Marseille, 1939-1944. Georgetown University Ph.D., 1984]
Biography
Ursula Lowenstein (born Ursula Seligmann) is the daughter of Siegfried and Alma Seligmann. She was born on January 23, 1923 and had one sister Else. the family lived in Ronnenberg, Germany, where Siegfried was a respected cattle dealer. Realizing the danger that the Nazis posed, the Seligmanns applied to emigrate to the United States and were placed on the quota lists at the American consulate in Hamburg. During Kristallnacht, Nazi storm troopers arrested Siegfried and transported him to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Following his release, Siegfried, Alma, and Ursula purchased tickets for the St. Louis. When the ship returned to Europe in 1939, the Seligmanns were assigned to Belgium and settled in Brussels. Following the German invasion in May 1940, the Belgium police arrested Siegfried as an "enemy alien." He was transported to France and detained in les Milles, a ceramic tile factory converted to an internment camp for German and Austrian nationals. In an effort to find him, Alma and Ursula fled to France, were arrested in Paris, and transported to the Gurs internment camp. During the summer and fall of 1941, the family obtained the necessary visa to leave France. Alma and Ursula went to Marseilles to await Siegfried's release before they fled to Portugal and departed Lisbon for the United States. In November 1941 they sailed to New York aboard the Portuguese liner Colonial. The Seligmanns arrived in the United States on December 3, 1941, just days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Settling in Washington, they rejoined Else, who had succeeded in leaving Germany on her own.
