Fort de Romainville, (in English, Fort Romainville) was built in France in the 1830s[1] and was used as a Nazi concentration camp in World War II.

Fort de Romainville
Transit camp
Entrance archway
Fort de Romainville is located in Paris and inner ring
Fort de Romainville
Location of Fort de Romainville within Paris and inner ring
Fort de Romainville is located in France
Fort de Romainville
Fort de Romainville (France)
Coordinates48°53′06″N 2°25′22″E / 48.885126°N 2.422718°E / 48.885126; 2.422718
LocationLes Lilas, Île-de-France
Occupied France
Built bySecond French Republic
Operated bySS
CommandantBickenbach
Original useMilitary fort for the protection of Paris
First built1844–48
OperationalOctober 1940 – 19 August 1944
InmatesFrench Resistance, French communists
Killed152
Notable inmatesPierre Georges, Danielle Casanova, Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier, Hélène Solomon-Langevin, Charlotte Delbo
Panorama of the Fort de Romainville, at the beginning of the 20th century

Use in World War II

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Fort de Romainville was a Nazi prison and transit camp, located in the outskirts of Paris. The Fort was taken in 1940 by the German military and transformed into a prison. From there, resistants and hostages were directed to the Nazi concentration camps. People were interned there before being deported to Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, Buchenwald or Dachau concentration camps; the deportees comprised 3,900 women and 3,100 men.

In the Fort itself, 152 persons were executed by firing squad. A few escaped, such as Pierre Georges, alias "Colonel Fabien." From her cell, Danielle Casanova motivated and encouraged her comrades to confront their torturers.[2] From February 1944, the Fort held primarily female prisoners (resistants and hostages), who were jailed, executed or redirected to the camps. At liberation in August 1944, many abandoned corpses were found in the Fort's yard.

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References

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  1. ^ MacIntyre, Ben (September 4, 2007). Agent Zigzag: a true story of Nazi espionage, love, and betrayal. Harmony. pp. 29–50. ISBN 978-0-307-35340-5.
  2. ^ site de Mémoire et espoir de la Résistance Archived 2005-10-27 at the Wayback Machine

See also

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