Gurs
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| Commune of Gurs | |
| Location | |
| Longitude | 00° 45' 09" W |
| Latitude | 43° 17' 18" N |
| Administration | |
|---|---|
| Country | France |
| Région | Aquitaine |
| Département | Pyrénées-Atlantiques |
| Arrondissement | Oloron-Sainte-Marie |
| Canton | Navarrenx |
| Intercommunality | Communauté de communes du canton de Navarrenx |
| Mayor | Louis Costemale (2001-2008) |
| Statistics | |
| Altitude | 119 m–254 m (avg. 178 m) |
| Land area¹ | 10.96 km² |
| Population² (1999) |
383 |
| - Density (1999) | 34.95/km² |
| Miscellaneous | |
| INSEE/Postal code | 64253/ 64190 |
| ¹ French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq. mi. or 247 acres) and river estuaries. | |
| ² Population sans doubles comptes: single count of residents of multiple communes (e.g. students and military personnel). | |
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Gurs is a commune of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques département, in southwestern France.
[edit] Geography
Gurs is located near Pau.
Neighboring communes:
- Jasses - northwest
- Sus - northwest
- Dognen - east
- Moncayolle-Larrory-Mendibieu - west
- L'Hôpital-Saint-Blaise - southwest
- Préchacq-Josbaig - south
[edit] History
Gurs was the site of the large Gurs concentration camp, built in 1939 for the internment of Spanish republicans seeking refuge in France, but after the defeat of France in May 1940 was used by the Nazis to hold French resistors, refugees fleeing Nazism, and German and French Jews, many of whom were later sent to Drancy and the extermination camps. It is estimated that 22,000 passed through Gurs, and about 18,000 of those were Jewish. Nothing remains of the camp; after the war a forest was planted on the site where it stood. In 2006, Jorge Semprun made the camp the subject of a play in French (with passages in German and Spanish) entitled Gurs: A European Tragedy.
[edit] External links
- quid.fr article on the Gurs commune In French
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