75 years ago, the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps were liberated. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of this event, President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron inaugurated the renovated Wall of Names, accompanied by Éric de Rothschild, François Heilbronn, Théo Hoffenberg and Jacques Fredj, respectively President, Vice-President, Secretary General and Director of the Shoah Memorial. The President also unveiled the plaque with Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, before addressing on the forecourt of the Memorial to a very large audience.
On the occasion of the inauguration of the renovated Wall of Names, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron invites all those holding archives to deposit them at the Memorial in order to be able to pass them on to future generations.
The ceremony ended with a minute of silence with students from the Lycée Auguste Blanqui in Saint-Ouen and the Lycée Montesquieu in Herblay.
Interior photos: Florence Brochoire / Exterior photos: Yonathan Kellerman
The Mémorial de la Shoah and the Rectorat of the Paris Academy offered the public a performance of the show "Quand la chanson se souvient de la Shoah", conceived and written by CERCIL co-produced with Loges Production, with the exceptional participation of 130 students from the choirs of the Parisian middle schools Janson de Sailly, Gustave Flaubert, Roland Dorgelès, Robert Doisneau, as well as singers Lila Tamazit, Valérian Renault and Aimée Leballeur, musician Fred Ferrand and reciter Hélène Mouchard-Zay.
This moving moment was preceded by a message from Simone Veil written in 2010 and the response of the Ambassadors for the memory of the Shoah.
Photos: Michel Isaac
The Memorial also welcomed Armin Laschet, President of North Rhine-Westphalia and federal minister plenipotentiary for Franco-German cultural relations. Accompanied by Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of National Education and Youth, and Geneviève Darrieussecq, Secretary of State to the Minister of the Armed Forces, he sat in front of the Wall of Names and the crypt, and then attended the performance of the choir. The delegation also attended the restitution of a workshop on anti-Semitism and racist prejudices led by the Memorial’s teaching staff and Sébastien Jung, history teacher, for the benefit of a class from the Albert Schweitzer High School in Raincy.
Photos: Michel Isaac
Throughout 2020, the Shoah Memorial is strengthening its main mission of transmitting the history of the Holocaust and genocides in order to help combat the return of anti-Semitism, hatred and intolerance.
