The spaces of the museum-memorial
Located in Paris, in the heart of the historic Marais district, the Shoah Memorial offers its visitors numerous resources and activities on a total surface area of nearly 5,000 m 2. Discover the different spaces that make up this place.
EXPLORE THE SPACES OF THE MUSEUM-MEMORIAL
© JC Boussiquet
The crypt and the Jewish file
The crypt
In the crypt located under the forecourt is a black marble Star of David. It is the symbolic tomb of the six million Jews who died without burial.
In this place are mixed the ashes of the martyrs collected from the death camps as well as from the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto. These ashes were buried on February 24, 1957 in the land of Israel, in accordance with tradition, by Rabbi Jacob Kaplan.
PRACTICE: The crypt is accessible during the opening hours of the Memorial.
The «jewish file»
On the same level as the crypt, the "Jewish file" deposited at the Memorial in December 1997 is installed in an enclave of the National Archives. Are grouped several files made between 1940 and 1944 which include the files of Jews arrested in Paris and in the department of the Seine as well as the files of internees from the camps of Drancy, and Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande in Loiret. Are also kept the transfer, entry and exit notebooks from the Drancy camp).
Some files have a specific subdivision for interned and/or deported children.
All these documents have been digitized by the Memorial and are available at the documentation center.
How to view this file?
The CDJC and the Mémorial have no authority over the conservation, management and consultation of the file, which are the exclusive responsibility of the National Archives.
However, the CDJC has a copy on microfilm of the entire "Jewish file". Researchers and families wishing to consult this file at the Memorial are invited to contact the officials of the Salle des noms by e-mail: noms@memorialdelashoah.org.
It is also possible to carry out these consultations at the National Archives.
The Book of Remembrance
Embedded in one of the walls of the crypt, six chests contain the volumes of the "Book of Remembrance" in which the names of the disappeared are inscribed, thus preserving them from oblivion. In these chests are also found parchment scrolls recounting the martyrology of all the Jewish communities of Europe decimated by the Nazis.
Inscription of a name in the Book of Remembrance
