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Internment, Labor and Triage Camp, Oued Akreuch, Morocco
Camp Oued Akreuch was a labor, internment, and triage camp near Rabat, Morocco.
Description
According to Dr. Corine Berghuis who researched and visited the camp in September 2017:
In the beginning of the 1940s, the Vichy regime in Morocco started to use a settlement near Rabat as a labor, internment and ‘triage’ camp. The internees, Spanish Republicans, Jewish refugees and others, had to work on building the dam ‘Barrage Sidi Mohamed Ben Adellah’ in the river Bouregreg, around 20 km southeast of Rabat. They had to break the stones from the mountains and put them on a train wagon for transportation for around 11 km to the place where he dam was planned. Not all the men did this heavy work, some were unskilled, unable, or did other work as medical doctors.
Dr Wyss-Dunant of the International Red Cross visited this camp in 7/22/1942 and reported that this camp existed of 15 barracks of cemented stone, placed in a bend of the river.
In this camp:
German Jewish refugees like Peter Winkler (known from the book of Sattlof) and Heinz Lieber/Henri Lebert (pseudonym) (according to the archive of Helene Cazes-Benatar).
Sources
Photos and description courtesy of Dr. Corine Berghuis, used with permission.
To read more about Dr. Berghuis' work on Vichy camps in Morocco, please visit: https://corrieberghuis.blogspot.com/