Established in 1939, the camp known as ‘Bagatelle’ in Saint-Germain-les-Belles consisted of eight prefabricated barracks, supplemented by a few outbuildings, a row of barbed wire and guard posts. It held various groups of people whom the army wished to control during the fighting: communists and pacifists, including around thirty women, suspected of anti-government propaganda; Spanish Republicans who had fled to France at the end of the Spanish Civil War, Germans and Austrians as nationals of enemy countries, a few ‘common criminals’, a few French or Allied servicemen serving sentences or in transit, and even a few German prisoners.

With the establishment of the French State, certain barracks were converted into Camps de Séjours Surveillés (C.S.S.) – permanent repressive facilities for all types of dissidents and marginalised people, placed at the service of Nazi Germany’s policies by the collaborationist government. The camp’s population rose from 20 to 220 people in February 1941. The camp saw several escapes, including that of five women in September 1940.

As a new repressive structure for which the army—reduced to 100,000 men by the terms of the armistice—could not provide the necessary personnel, the C.S.S.s led to the recruitment of a dedicated French administrative staff. The commanders were reservists with the rank of captain, who had completed university or engineering studies. A commissioner from the new national police force, assisted by a few inspectors, was assigned to work alongside them. The camp did not operate in isolation, but was part of a regional network including other sites, such as the one at Nexon. These camps played a complementary role, receiving, holding and, at times, transferring internees within the system. The large number of parcels received, the abundance of their correspondence, the regularity of visits, and the petitions drawn up on their behalf bear witness to the activity of the solidarity networks that formed around the internees.

The camp was abandoned in March 1941. After the Liberation, it housed Polish refugees. Few traces remain today. A plaque erected by the National Foundation for Deportees, Internees, Resistance Fighters and Patriots (FNDIRP) in 1996 commemorates the fact that here “many communist activists, including elected representatives, trade unionists and Jews, both men and women, were imprisoned”.