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Montreuil-Bellay Internment Camp Memorial

Montreuil-Bellay Internment Camp Memorial

Highlight • Historical Site

Montreuil-Bellay Internment Camp Memorial

Name: Montreuil-Bellay Internment Camp Memorial
Rating: 2

Recommended by 1 road cyclists

This Highlight is in a protected area

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Parc naturel régional Loire-Anjou-Touraine

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Location: Montreuil-Bellay, Saumur, Pays de la Loire, France

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Best Road Cycling Rides to Montreuil-Bellay Internment Camp Memorial

5.0

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1. Saumur – Saumur Wine Route loop from Berrie

137km

06:46

780m

Hard road ride. Very good fitness required. Some segments of this route may be unpaved and difficult to ride.

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Hard

4.5

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2. Fontevraud Royal Abbey – Montsoreau Castle loop from Montreuil-Bellay

59.9km

02:44

390m

Moderate road ride. Good fitness required. Some segments of this route may be unpaved and difficult to ride.

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Moderate

4.5

(4)

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3. Fontevraud Royal Abbey – Montsoreau Castle loop from Saumur

64.8km

02:41

370m

Moderate road ride. Good fitness required. Mostly well-paved surfaces and easy to ride.

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Moderate

Tips

Fabrice Rigalleau

July 20, 2024

Outside the town of Montreuil-Bellay, along a railway line, this site hosted, from 1941 to 1946, one of thirty French concentration camps for “homeless individuals, nomads and fairground people, of the Romani type”. In other words for Roma, Gypsies, Manouches or Gypsies. Of this camp, all that remains now are stone steps, foundations, a cellar which served as a prison and a commemorative stele. These Gypsies, in entire families, came from a multitude of small camps opened following the law of April 6, 1940 signed by Albert Lebrun, last president of the 3rd Republic, a law which stipulated that these nomads had to be gathered in communes designated under police surveillance and which was applied with zeal by Vichy. Also interned in Montreuil were tramps arrested in the streets of Nantes at the beginning of the summer of 1942, and almost all of whom disappeared before the end of the winter that followed.
The camp was not an extermination camp. The thousands of Gypsies interned there, around 1,500 at the height of the occupation, were not subsequently deported to German death camps. But living conditions there were deplorable.
Fallen into oblivion after the war, this site was only recently rediscovered. And it was only in 2010 that the ruins of this camp were listed as a historic monument in order to prevent their total disappearance and make them a place of memory.
Some images on this site sadly steeped in history fondationshoah.org/memoire/montreuil-bellay-un-camp-tsigane-oubli-un-film-dalexandre-fronty

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Elevation 60 m

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Friday 19 December

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Location: Montreuil-Bellay, Saumur, Pays de la Loire, France

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Montreuil-Bellay Internment Camp Memorial

1. Saumur – Saumur Wine Route loop from Berrie

2. Fontevraud Royal Abbey – Montsoreau Castle loop from Montreuil-Bellay

3. Fontevraud Royal Abbey – Montsoreau Castle loop from Saumur

Other Popular Places to Check Out

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