Vichy Labor Camp at Tendrara, Morocco

Tendrara, Morocco

The small town of Tendrara is the site of a Vichy era labor camp, built along the railroad stretching from Oran, Algeria, south through Morocco’s eastern border. The railroad was largely built by the labor of Vichy prisoners, sent to camps like this one. It is the best-preserved Vichy camp along Morocco’s eastern border with Algeria, perhaps in the entire country.

How to get there: Continue south for about sixty miles from the camp at Ain Benimatthar in eastern Morocco. There is no traffic on this stunning but desolate stretch of road, so it should only take you an hour or so. Tendrara is just as deserted and run-down as Ain Benimatthar. Ask around, and someone will point you in the direction of the abandoned Vichy labor camp, a little bit east of town along a dirt road. Once you find the dirt road, follow it for about thirty minutes. You might occasionally encounter donkey-drawn vehicles, but mostly there isn’t a soul in sight. You will eventually turn a corner and see imposing tan buildings in the distance, with the shimmer of the telltale train tracks.

Description

What Remains: The Tendrara buildings loom empty, the ceilings caved in. It is a complex abandoned to rot, with barbed wire poking out under over-grown grass. The ground is littered with French produced Marseille tiles, some of which are decorated with absurd hearts. The buildings all face the train tracks except for one, silent watchers for trains that passed through long ago on a now abandoned rail project. The staircase to the station house is intact; if you walk in, you will see traces of blue or green paint, a staircase to a basement, fireplaces, shattered glass and broken bricks. Many of the walls have crumbled halfway to the floor, but the subdivisions are still clear.

Vichy Camp at Tendrara: Holocaust History in North Africa

Historical Context: Some buildings are larger and grander than others. According to historian Robert Satloff:

"...the buildings were clearly laid out for use either by soldiers or the military-like overseers of the CMO [Chemins de Fer du Maroc Oriental, railroads of eastern Morocco] and Trans-Saharan Railways. The posher quarters closest to the tracks may have been set aside for the Europeans; the steerage-quality buildings farther back were probably for local Arab guards. The prisoners who labored there—Jews from Warsaw, Leipzig, Salzburg, and Bucharest as well as Spaniards and others lived in tents.”

Stepping back, it is an abandoned city in the desert, complete with buildings grand and small. A three-minute drive back around the bend of the dirt road and it will have disappeared from sight.