CAMP OF NEXON
(Haute-Vienne)

The SUPERVISES STAY CENTER OF NEXON was built in the current 1940 and accomodated political prisoners in November 1940.

It contained 13 huts being able to shelter 1,200 internees; 4 additional constructions will change the reception capacity to 1,600 people.

It was surrounded by a network of barbed wires and was supervised by 4 watchtowers.

Chevaux-de-frise supplemented the fence.

Taking into account the frequent transfer of internees towards other French or German camps and the working people that the occupant drew there, manpower varied from 150 to 700 prisoners, in majority Communists and trade unionists.

August 29, 1942, 450 Jews, among them 68 children from the area of LIMOGES, are arrested and gathered in NEXON. They will be delivered to the Nazis and deported to AUSCHWITZ. Old Jews evacuated from the Camp of RECEBEDOU found "refuge" in NEXON.

Following its dissolution in November 1943, the internees of the camp of GURS will be also transferred to NEXON.

The attack of the camp by the F.F.I. June 11, 1944 caused a cut of electricity.54 prisoners will take this opportunity to escape. The other internees will be conveyed in LIMOGES in the Camp of LE GRAND SEMINAIRE.

NEXON becomes again then a camp of administrative internment which will be definitively closed in 1945.

The living conditions to the C.S.S. of NEXON were hard and many internees suffered from a lack of hygiene and malnutrition.

As for the mail, it was subjected to the censure and limited to two letters per week; it was sometimes left with the discrétionnaire capacity of the guards in the event of discipline failure.

Not dated postcard from an internee.

Revision date
19/05/2006