Latvians in the Internment Camps in France

In late January 1939, more than 50 Latvian men, who had been withdrawn from their units in autumn 1938, volunteered to defend the Spanish Republic once again and tried to provide support in the Republican retreat from Catalonia. In early February, those, who crossed the Spanish French border around Portbou–Cerbère, were placed in the internment camp of Argelès-sur-Mer. Another group was placed in the Saint-Cyprien camp. According to an anonymous letter written by Latvians to Strādnieku Cīņa (Workers' Struggle), the Latvian communist newspaper in the USA, there were 43 Latvians, including some from the USSR, in the Saint-Cyprien internment camp and 16 Latvian men in the camp at Argelès-sur-Mer. 

Both groups found the living conditions exceedingly difficult. However, humor was useful to cope with difficulties. Rūdolfs Lācis, Latvian from the USSR, described that “we are in France, on the shores of the Mediterranean, to relax. All the bourgeois from our homeland can envy us.” The internees also used all the opportunities to improve their life and to build shelters from the wind and harsh weather conditions. Lācis considered that they had managed to set up decent barracks at Saint-Cyprien, however, “from the point of view of French ‘democracy’ we are acting in the most shameless and criminal manner. We use electricity without an energy register, that is, we steal it. Our radio is not registered anywhere. According to the instructions, there should be no ‘mattresses’, no tables, no benches in our barracks. We are lawbreakers, for which we can face punishment. But this is not the first time we are violating the laws of a bourgeois democracy.” Latvians from the USSR had a key role in upholding discipline, organizing different activities, and illegally promoting communism. Once in two weeks Latvians in Saint-Cyprien internment camp even created their own wall newspaper Jaunā Cīņa (The New Fight).

Trying to hide their beliefs, many Latvian citizens wrote to the Latvian legation in Paris in the hope of receiving valid travel documents and returning to Latvia, but the prevailing attitude of Latvian authorities towards the Republican volunteers was negative and the regime of Kārlis Ulmanis refused to issue documents. In contrast, Latvians from the USSR were able to return home in early spring 1939. In April and May 1939, the Latvians remaining Latvians in Saint-Cyprien and Argelès-sur-Mer were moved to the internment camp at Gurs. In the letter shown here which he wrote in Russian, Kārlis Rozenberg describes his poor health due to malaria and inability of Latvians to return home. Later, after the German invasion of France, those who did not escape or join the French Foreign Legion were moved to Le Vernet and Argelès-sur-Mer internment camps. In Autumn 1940, after the USSR had occupied Latvia, it started to take care of its new citizens and Latvians were transferred to Carpiagne and finally to Les Milles. They were liberated from the camps and were able to travel to USSR in 1941.

GIB