![Jewish women prisoners behind a barbed-wire fence at the Gurs detention camp. [LCID: 78704]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/bc72efe3-7468-406c-9bee-5a0fc7ac6377.jpg)
The Gurs camp was one of the earliest and largest concentration camps established in France. Opened in 1939 before World War II began, Gurs originally served as a detention camp for refugees. After the French armistice with Germany in June 1940, Gurs fell under the authority of the Vichy regime, the new collaborationist French government. From 1940-1943, more than 18,000 German Jews were imprisoned in the camp. Explore more content related to Gurs during the Holocaust (1933–1945).
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![Beatrice Stern Pappenheimer [LCID: bpg0046f]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/0d36ac7c-9290-4778-81d1-aaf1c33406f5.jpg)
![Beatrice Stern Pappenheimer [LCID: bpo0047f]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/f7857c78-1aeb-4d32-868a-be0dbb7579fc.jpg)
![Young children in the Gurs camp. Gurs, France, ca. [LCID: 03430]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/2d1443c0-eadc-4981-a251-ff4c8a1c96f5.jpeg)
![Deportation of German Jews to France, where Vichy officials would intern them in the Gurs camp (in southwestern France). [LCID: 77895]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/e2cd70d0-0003-48e6-9962-386426cb49b4.jpeg)
![Drawing titled "L'Attente" [Mother and Son Waiting] by Lili Andrieux](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/bb01fa7f-a163-47af-a99b-9cc9ad7eac88.jpg)
![Emma Freund [LCID: 1335]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/6f9fe037-6b0f-4811-afcd-27ce5b781a94.gif)
![A group of foreign-born Jews poses for a photo in Gurs, a French internment camp in southwestern France. [LCID: 80148]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/38f6482d-c5a5-417e-b08b-aea5811f84bf.jpeg)
![View of the Gurs camp as photographed from a water tower. [LCID: 03100]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/04ae9d93-0a93-4534-bf87-dbce426ef2ba.jpg)
![Gurs camp, 1942 [LCID: gur22033]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/be787e19-ef37-4053-883f-79e0276e946b.gif)
![Gurs environs, 1942 [LCID: gur42040]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/53072b69-69bb-4718-b213-98378f724e0f.gif)