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Vichy Labor Camp at 'Ain el-Ourak, Morocco

'Ain el-Ourak, Morocco

Bou Arfa, a town far south along the railway from Tendrara, was home to the largest Vichy-era labor camp in Morocco, located near the main train station. According to the Red Cross, 818 people were interned there as of July 1942. As such, Bou Arfa’s camp had three satellite camps, one of which was Ain el-Ourak, located near an old mine south of Bou Arfa. According to historian Robert Satloff, Ain el-Ourak “served until May 1942 as the main discipline site for Bou Arfa laborers. When French officers sold the site to a local Arab notable for 100,000 francs, they moved the camp to a place called Foum Deflah. 

Description

How to get there: Drive south from Tendrara to Bou Arfa. Once you arrive in Bou Arfa, ask for the old mines and mention that they were near the site of a French labor camp. Someone older will know and can give you directions, at least to the mining encampment. Once you reach the encampment, ask again, and someone will tell you to take a dirt road adjacent to the barred-off mine. Follow the dirt road, heading ever closer to the dramatic mountains, passing shepherds and their flocks until you find a small brick dwelling. Get out of the car to ask someone for directions. A man appears shortly, and after exchanging the necessary salaams, this man, perhaps dressed in a worn leather jacket, dust-worn pants and a scarf to protect his head from the sun, tells you to take a certain dirt road which will turn into rocks so sharp you will have to park and walk three kilometers to the foothills of the mountain, which you will recognize by the palm trees in the distance. As promised, at a certain juncture the road becomes too harsh for your car to pass. Park, and began the trek into the bleary, dusty distance. Eventually you spy palm trees from afar. You also see a smattering of low, brick structures, next to a small palm oasis, not a single person in sight.

   Ain el-Ourak Vichy (Holocaust era) Labor Camp in Southern Morocco 

What is Left: The camp structures blend into the foot of the mountains until you get closer. For a while, you can only see the palm trees, until slowly they shimmer into your line of sight from dusty obscurity. The structures are quite different from those of Tendrara, a larger camp with imposing ruins further north, and are more conical in design. Next to the conical buildings are square structures with triangular doorways. They are elevated, on a hill, providing a gorgeous panoramic view of the mountains and rocky plateau. There may even be the remnants of a cemetery, but you are not sure.

Vichy Labor Camp at 'Ain el-Ourak, Morocco

'Ain el-Ourak, Morocco

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Sources

Robert Satloff. Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands (New York: Public Affairs, 2006), pp. 68-69. Accessed February 24, 2014, http://books.google.com/books?id=WPj_N7O3md8C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA68#v=onepage&q&f=false.