The management of the Chambon-sur-Lignon Museum entrusted to the Shoah Memorial

The Museum dedicated to the rescue action carried out by the population of Chambon-sur-Lignon and the plateau, will be managed by the Shoah Memorial from the 1^er September.

During the Second World War, two to three thousand Jews, including many children, found refuge in the village of Chambon-sur-Lignon and surrounding municipalities, mostly Protestant. This story of resistance, welcome, rescue, written with courage and discretion by their inhabitants was carried out with the help of Christian organizations such as CIMADE, the Swiss Aid, the Garel network, the OSE and the Eclaireurs Israélites de France.

In 1990, Yad Vashem collectively awarded the honorary diploma of Righteous among the Nations to the inhabitants of Chambon-sur-Lignon and neighbouring villages. Moreover, nearly ninety people were honored individually.

In 2008, the Mayor of Le Chambon made the decision to create a place of remembrance in the disused part of the primary school and the former cross-country skiing home, a bakery during the war. Since the beginning of this project, the Shoah Memorial and the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah (FMS) have been associated in governance as well as in the scientific council.

On June 3, 2013, at the initiative of Mrs. Eliane Wauquier, mayor of Chambon-sur-Lignon, a museum called "Lieu de Mémoire" dedicated to the different forms of resistance that have manifested in Chambon and in the villages of the plateau of Vivarais-Lignon (Haute-Loire) was inaugurated, to the Righteous in particular, thus reminding that many Jews were saved among the refugees welcomed in this village.

The building extends over 600m² approximately. It includes a permanent exhibition, a temporary exhibition space, an educational room, offices, a reception shop. Adjacent to the building, a landscaped garden offers the visitor a space for reflection.

Concerned that this place of memory be perpetuated, the municipality wished to entrust its management to the Memorial, decision voted on February 26, 2020, by the Municipal Council of Chambon and approved by an extraordinary session of the Board of Directors of the Memorial held on March 4, 2020. The administrative emphyteutic lease of 40 years will enter into force on 1 September 2020.

Photo from the iconographic archive given by the descendants of Roger Darcissac to the Chambon-sur-Lignon museum