Week of education and actions against racism and antisemitism: Participate in the memory journey of the Shoah Memorial

Sunday 20 March 2022 

9:30 am to 5:30 pm: National Day of Struggle against antisemitism "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 missing children in the hell of the Nazi camps. They are the very expression of Crime against Humanity as defined by André Frossard: 'to kill someone under 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 an uninhibited anti-Semitism and rewriting history, the Judeo-Christian Friendship of France affirms with its partners, and with its forty local Groups distributed throughout France, its willingness to fight together against this virus that poisons society by questioning, on March 20, the commitment of all in this vital fight.

In collaboration with AJCF

11h – 13h: The musical and literary Marais

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

Mediator: Virginie Fromentin 

3 pm – 4:30 pm: Jewish lives of a popular neighborhood: Belleville and the XX^e arrondissement

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

Mediator: Claire Stanislawski 

Thursday 24 March 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 unprecedented roundup involves, for the first time, more than 4,000 children under 16 years old. All are transported to the "Vel'd'Hiv", a famous sports palace located not far from the Eiffel Tower, and stay there for six days in inhuman conditions before being deported, via Drancy, to Auschwitz, where few will return. 

Following the destruction of the stadium in 1959, what remains today of "these days of tears and shame", in the words of Jacques Chirac in 1995? This journey will address the history and memory of this raid, 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

11h – 12h30: «Le petit Istanbul»: on the traces of the Judeo-Spaniards in the XI^e arrondissement

Started at the end of the XIX^e century, this immigration from Balkan Europe finds 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 to life under the pen of Ariane Bois in Le Monde d'Hannah which depicts the story of a family, a Turkish Jew. The route is accompanied by excerpts from the book and allows retracing the history of the Judeo-Spaniards, from their settlement to the darker time of the persecutions of the Occupation. 

Mediator: Sophie Gagnard

11h – 1pm: Works for memory: the Shoah in Literature

During and after the Shoah, in France as everywhere in Europe, many were those who took up the pen to say and tell the unspeakable. From testimony to fiction, from autobiography to theatre, from the newspaper to poetry, the power of the verb invites us to question and understand History. Why write? When to write and in what form? Around the Shoah Memorial and then within the permanent exhibition, the workshop allows to walk through the most beautiful pages of Simone Veil, Joseph Kessel, Robert Badinter, Hélène Berr, Patrick Modiano or even 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 the birth of Hélène Berr and her departure for 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 a trap that, step by step, closes in on her. Her striking lucidity and her talent as a writer make the Diary of Hélène Berr an original and precious testimony. 

The journey is accompanied by the reading of excerpts from the Journal 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 31 March 2022 

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

The itinerary begins with a presentation of the Wall of Names at the Shoah Memorial before following in the footsteps of Jewish life in the historic heart of Paris, the Marais. By discovering synagogues, commemorative plaques and traditional businesses, from the Middle Ages to the present day, the group follows the evolution of the Jewish district, "le Pletzl". 

Mediator: Fleur Sophikitis

In partnership :