Museums in Paris: Le Mémorial de la Shoah

[This blog post is a milestone, #1300.  Thanks for following the blog, Our 10 Year Plan.]

During one of Marais walking tours, we visited a museum and archive there dedicated to the WWII holocaust, Le Mémorial de la Shoah (the Memorial of the Shoah).  The Memorial is located in the Marais, which was home to a large Jewish population at the outset of World War II. 

The Memorial was opened nearly 15 years ago on January 27, 2005.  January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and that day was the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  The Memorial's inauguration was the culmination of work that started during WWII when Rabbi Isaac led an underground group that began the documentation of Nazi war crimes.

The museum is a solemn place to learn about the deportation and murder of Jews living in France during the Occupation in WWII.  Thousands of school children in Paris and beyond were among the victims.  

Our visit started outside the Memorial at the Wall of the Righteous (Le Mur des Justes).  The wall, which is located on the renamed street Allée des Justes, is dedicated to the thousands of people who fought against the arrest and deportation of Jews in France.

Next to the Memorial is a school with a plaque that appears on many schools.  The plaque explains explains that 11,000 children were deported and murdered at Auschwitz because they were born Jewish.  More than 500 of those children lived in Paris's 4th arrondissement and many attended this school.

Inside the Memorial is The Wall of Names, which identifies the 76,000 victims who were deported from France and most of whom were murdered.  As mentioned before, this memorial is a very sobering place to visit.

Below is a closeup photo of one small part of The Wall of Names.

In the courtyard of the Memorial is a large bronze circular memorial with the names of the death camps where victims were sent.  

The facade of the Memorial building

Above are two of several bronze bas-relief sculptures by Arbit Blata that depict scenes from the death camps.

Inside the building is the Memorial Crypt which has existed since 1957, well before the museum was opened.  The crypt contains the ashes of victims from different death camps, buried in dirt from Israel.  

The Memorial includes many displays to educate visitors about French Jews and the Holocaust.  Below is a room with thousands of files that identify French Jews.  The files were created by the Vichy government and then used by the Germans to arrest and deport Jews.  

The plaque below explains why the Memorial was created.

Thanks for visiting Le Mémorial de la Shoah with us.  We think every visitor to Paris should go to the Memorial.  Thanks to our friend Susan Morris and guide Karen Reb Rudel for taking us there.