Further down the valley from St Dalmas de Tende is the bustling town of Borgo San Dalmazzo. During the Second World War a concentration camp was established here and the Jews who had fled occupied France were incarcerated in it.
In 1943, on 21st November, 329 Jews were taken from the camp to the railway station and pushed into cattle trucks and transported to the transit camp at Drancy, near Paris. From there they were sent to Auschwitz. Only eighteen survived.
Go to the railway station today and you will see, set into the platform in front of three goods trucks, the names of those deportees in the positions in which they stood before being carted away.
The names of the survivors have been set upright in steel.
Part of the text on the board reads:
"Each name is a ray of hope that has been extinguished forever. Come closer. The sound of silence and the absence of people will help you to understand how much damage man is capable of causing when he puts himself and his rights above those of others."
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