In the context of the exhibition “Le temps de la guerre 1939-1945 dans le Gard”, the Departmental Archives welcomed a conference devoted to the concentration camp of Vernet d’Ariège. Through drawings of internees, testimonies, and the paths of exiles passing through Gard, the speakers notably discussed the story of the father of the mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck, who was arrested in Nîmes before being interned and deported.
At the Departmental Archives of Gard, the exhibition “Le temps de la guerre 1939-1945 dans le Gard” invites the public to rediscover the history of the department during World War II. Until May 31, 2027, over 500 objects, photographs, and documents trace the paths of resistance fighters of all nationalities, victims of repression, journalists, soldiers, and civilians facing the realities of war. Prepared over two years by the Archives teams, the exhibition received the national label “Mission Libération”, which recognizes projects related to the 80 years of Liberation.
Conferences
Through these archives and testimonies, the memory of Gard during wartime is revealed. To delve deeper into these themes, the Departmental Archives offer a series of conferences bringing together historians, researchers, and witnesses. It was in this context that a conference dedicated to the Vernet d’Ariège concentration camp was organized on Saturday, March 28 at the auditorium of the Archives in Nîmes, led by Fernando Sanchez and Raymond Cubells.
The two speakers recounted the history of this camp, opened on February 9, 1939, to intern Spanish Republicans fleeing the civil war. The first internees arrived by train and found a camp lacking barracks, forced to sleep outside before building their own facilities. The speakers brought this reality to life through testimonies of internees and numerous drawings created in the camp, now preserved by the Amicale du camp du Vernet. The works of interned artists such as Sikachinsky, Carlos Duchatellier, Giuseppe Capone, or Igor Yasinsky, as well as a sketchbook written by Sandor Gara and illustrated by Vladimir Makaroff, show how art served as both testimony and resistance in the face of confinement.
Alexandre Grothendieck
The conference also shed light on a fate directly linked to Gard and Nîmes, that of Alexandre Tanaroff, known as Sacha Schapiro, a Russian anarchist and father of the future great mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck.
After the Retirada of February 1939, Schapiro and his partner Jeanne Raddatz, also known as Hanka Grothendieck, a political refugee, found refuge in France. After a brief stay in the Paris region, they reunited with their son Alexandre, who had been left in Germany since 1933 with friends. The family then moved to Nîmes in the fall of 1939, where they participated in the grape harvest. Hanka worked as a maid for the city commissioner.
But the situation for foreigners quickly became precarious. On October 29, 1939, the central police station in Nîmes compiled a list of foreigners deemed suspicious and destined for internment at the Vernet d’Ariège concentration camp. Among them was “Panaroff Alexandre, Russian anarchist refugee”, a pseudonym used by Schapiro.
Arrest in Nîmes
The document, kept in the Departmental Archives of Gard and presented during the conference, also mentions his registration in the B file, a surveillance file of individuals deemed dangerous to state security (formerly the S file).
Arrested in Nîmes, Sacha Schapiro was interned at the Vernet camp on October 31, 1939. He was later transferred to the Drancy camp before being deported to Auschwitz on August 19, 1942, where he was killed upon arrival.
Meanwhile, Hanka Grothendieck and their son Alexandre also experienced internment, including at the Rieucros camp in Lozère. Young Alexandre was eventually hidden in Chambon-sur-Lignon during the war. After the conflict, he became one of the greatest mathematicians of the 20th century and received the Fields Medal in 1966, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in mathematics.
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