The Saint-Cyprien print by the painter Carl Rabus shows a section of the beach in the southern French town Saint-Cyprien on the Mediterranean Sea. At first glance it looks like a holiday scene. The fence and the barbed wire, however, reveal that this is not the case.

Adopting the role of an impartial observer, Carl Rabus sketched a part of the internment camp which existed in Saint-Cyprien at this time: the bleak location, the barracks, the wooden structures that are open on three sides, as well as the surrounding countryside. Those lying unprotected in the sun are therefore not tourists, but prisoners. The artist's decision not to exaggerate the scene emphasises the contrast between captivity and freedom - as represented by the confined spaces of the camp and the expanse of the sea and the mountains.

The Saint-Cyprien internment camp was one of seven large camps in the south of France where thousands of exiles were imprisoned. Carl Rabus was one of them and he captured the aspects which defined his everyday life there: the inmates, the landscape, the camp and the bleakness of the situation.