Happy start of the school year!

Transmitting the history of the Shoah is the essential mission of the Memorial. To carry it out, our institution intends to act with and alongside the professors, whose role is to teach History but also, and above all, to awaken consciences. To this end, our teaching teams propose each year a renewed offer on our sites in Paris or Drancy, in your academies, or within your establishments, in line with the expectations of the teaching world and programs.

In addition to the already existing activities for middle school and high school students, the Memorial offers two new inter-museums from the start of the school year: on the theme of memorial architecture with the Memorial of the Martyrs of the Deportation, and on the fate of the resistance fighters with the Mont-Valérien. At a time when the ranks of witnesses are thinning, we are also strengthening student exchanges with survivors during meetings in the auditorium. Finally, the subject of CNRD 2018 will be widely invested by our teams again this year, through the organization of screenings-meetings, exhibitions, tours... and by setting up a dedicated website.

Always focused on the enhancement of the notions of tolerance and humanity, our activities for the youngest are growing and include new workshops. Designed for the most part around an artistic practice and avoiding a too frontal approach to the Shoah, they stimulate children’s interest in history and civic values.

Teachers will be able to benefit from various training trips, in France and in Europe. Our program is enriched by training days focused on citizenship, proposing to concretely address the sensitive questions asked at school through the implementation of practical cases. This year again, the challenge will not only be to transmit the history of the Holocaust and genocides, it will also be to give a universal scope to this teaching and to fight against hate speech and intolerance.

To everyone, happy back-to-school.

Jacques Fredj, director