Week of education and actions against racism and antisemitism: Participate in the remembrance trail of the Shoah Memorial

Sunday, March 20, 2022 

9:30 am to 5:30 pm: National Day of Struggle against Anti-Semitism "The Time of Responsibilities"

On 19 March 2012, for the first time since 1944, Jewish children Gabriel and Arié Sandler and Myriam Monsonégo were murdered in their school in Toulouse, with Jonathan Sandler. They joined the million and a half children who disappeared in the hell of the Nazi camps. They are the very expression of Crime against Humanity as defined by André Frossard: "to kill someone on the pretext that he was born." They illustrate the fear expressed by Primo Levi who said: The idea of a new Auschwitz is certainly not dead, as nothing ever dies. Everything reappears in a new light, but nothing ever dies.

In a context of reaffirmation of uninhibited anti-Semitism and rewriting history, the Jewish-Christian Friendship of France affirms with its partners, and with its forty local groups spread throughout France, its desire to fight together against this virus that is poisoning society by questioning, on March 20, the commitment of everyone in this vital fight.

In collaboration with AJCF

11 a.m. – 1 p.m.: Le Marais musical et littéraire

The visitor walks through the small streets of the Marais on the traces of Jewish life from the Middle Ages to the present day. School, synagogues, shops and a secret garden mark out this route. Along the street, musical readings will accompany this discovery.

Mediator: Virginie Fromentin 

15h – 16h30: Jewish lives in a popular neighborhood: Belleville and the XX^e arrondissement

This route through the streets of Belleville, Saint-Fargeau and Gambetta allows you to understand the daily life of Jewish immigrants settled in these working-class neighborhoods. Artisans, fairground workers, often Yiddish-speaking, religious or secular, politically engaged or not, these newcomers become part of the life of the 20th century.^e district to which they infuse a new energy. First targeted during the roundups of 1941 and 1942, the inhabitants of these neighborhoods include many resistance fighters. 

Mediator: Claire Stanislawski 

Thursday, March 24, 2022

19h – 20h30: The places of memory of the roundup of the Vel’d'Hiv'

On 16 and 17 July 1942, at the initiative of the Germans, the French police arrested 13,152 Jews in Paris. This roundup on an unprecedented scale concerns, for the first time, more than 4,000 children under 16 years of age. All were transported to the "Vel’d'Hiv", a famous sports palace located not far from the Eiffel Tower, and interned there for six days in inhuman conditions before being deported, via Drancy, to Auschwitz, from where few returned. 

Following the destruction of the stadium in 1959, what remains today of "these days of tears and shame", according to the words of Jacques Chirac in 1995? This journey will address the history and memory of this roundup, now a symbol of the Shoah in France. 

This route is proposed as part of the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the Vel’d'Hiv' roundup.

Mediator: Sophie Gagnard

Sunday, March 27, 2022

11 am – 12:30 pm: "Little Istanbul": in the footsteps of the Judeo-Spanish in the XI^e arrondissement

Started at the end of the 19th century^e century, this immigration from Balkan Europe found its place in the Popincourt district. From rue Sedaine to place Voltaire, passing by the synagogue on rue de la Roquette, streets, shops and cafés come back to life under the pen of Ariane Bois in Le Monde d'Hannah, which depicts the story of a Turkish Jewish family. The itinerary is accompanied by excerpts from the book and allows us to retrace the history of the Judeo-Spaniards, from their settlement to the darker time of the persecutions of the Occupation. 

Mediator: Sophie Gagnard

11am – 1pm: Works for memory: the Holocaust in literature

During and after the Shoah, in France as throughout Europe, many people took up the pen to tell and recount the unspeakable. From testimony to fiction, from autobiography to theater, from the newspaper to poetry, the power of the word invites us to question and understand history. Why write? When to write and in what form? Around the Shoah Memorial and within the permanent exhibition, the workshop allows you to walk through the most beautiful pages of Simone Veil, Joseph Kessel, Robert Badinter, Hélène Berr, Patrick Modiano or Primo Levi.

Mediator: Julien Coutant

15h – 17h30: In the footsteps of Hélène Berr

The Shoah Memorial offers this route on March 27, in memory of the day of Hélène Berr’s birth and her deportation.

From April 1942 to February 1944, Hélène Berr, a young Jewish student, kept her diary in occupied Paris. Over the words, between relative carefreeness and anxiety, the young woman shares her daily life in the face of the trap that, step by step, closes in on her. Her striking lucidity and her talent as a writer make the Journal of Hélène Berr an unpublished and precious testimony. 

The itinerary is accompanied by the reading of excerpts from the Diary put into perspective with the situation of the Jews in Paris under the Occupation. 

With the exceptional presence of Mariette Job, niece of Hélène Ber and editor of the Journal.

Mediator: Julien Coutant

Thursday, March 31, 2022 

19h – 20h30: The Marais district: in the footsteps of Jewish life in Paris

The tour begins with a presentation of the Wall of Names at the Shoah Memorial before going on the traces of Jewish life in the historic heart of Paris, the Marais. By discovering synagogues, commemorative plaques and traditional shops from the Middle Ages to the present day, the group follows the evolution of the Jewish quarter, "le Pletzl". 

Mediator: Fleur Sophikitis

In partnership: