The Gurs internment camp had been set up at the end of the Spanish Civil War as a resettlement camp for escaping fighters from Spain. It had not been constructed as a "concentration camp". A committed sportswoman, Wosikowski organised other internees to become more physically active (whether they liked it or not). Two of her fellow internees, Luise Kraushaar and had, like her, been working for the party in Paris and in the camp the three of them teamed up. By the end of June 1940 Irene Wosikowski had escaped with her two comrades. Wosikowski now took the train for Marseilles, intending to join up with the Résistance.