During the war St Sulpice, France was a concentration camp that hosted Political prisonners, Belgian refugees, Jews and thsoe considered "unwanted" by the Nazis. This is some carved woodwork made by an skilled inmate in 1941 (at that date the camp had mostly Communist and Union members locked up) . I hope the artist survived! These items are an unique testimony form this forgotten camp. They are signed and dated 1941 and represent the chateau of St sulpice, among other things. Les camps d'internement français entre 1939 et 1945 : Camp de ST-SULPICE-LA-POINTE
originally built to intern German and Austrian civilians in 1939, it was used for Belgian refugees in May 1940, then left wing Political leaders/members. Later it was use dto intern Jews (1942) before those unfortunate were sent to Drancy and then to the death camps in Germany. The artwork I have is from 1941, so I guess it was a political inmate who carved those out of piece of wood. I suspect these were either given to relatives, or traded with guards and/Or villagers for food for instance.
Il is not a castle, it's the church - 40 meters high, it could be seen from the camp View attachment 13669
Somehow managed to miss this the first and the second time... Very interesting items and the story ,too!
Np problem Kai, glad you like the thread, if you like trench art there are more small similar threads in this same section, I'm almost sure you missed a few interesting ones there , so there are quite a few things to lurk at
In 1943 a young painter arrived at camp, he was a Jew and a communist. Boris Tasliztky. He was allowed to paint on the walls of the barracks and of the camp chapel, with paint given by a priest of the parish. View attachment 13677 When the camp's chief saw the fourth painting, he became furious, Taslitsky was beaten by guards but, curiously, the paint was not destroyed... Later, Taslitzky was sent in Buchenwald. He survived. After Liberation, the paintings were unfortunately lost. You can see too the wood ceiling of the barracks...
Some views of the camp. View attachment 13681 On second and third photos, you can see an unfortunated one-legged prisonner
Most interesting , the paintings are of great quality too. Thank you again for contributing to this fine thread.
