The regional council of Centre-Val de Loire and the Mémorial de la Shoah signed on July 4, 2018 a partnership agreement in support of the Cercil-Musée mémorial des enfants du Vel d'Hiv, created in Orléans in 1991.
François Bonneau, Eric de Rothschild and Hélène Mouchard-Zay
In December 2017, to ensure its sustainability, the Center for Studies and Research on Internment Camps of Loiret (Cercil) had joined the Memorial, a private foundation recognized as being of public utility. Today, the Region Centre-Val de Loire commits to support this association over three years, which has become a local branch of the Memorial Foundation of the Shoah, in its annual program of transmission and awareness towards the public and schools (exhibitions, conferences, documentaries, publications of books...), in the pursuit of the cooperation project with the Land of Saxony-Anhalt and in its operation.
The Region contributes 80,000 euros of subsidy to Cercil. This partnership was signed by François Bonneau, president of the Centre-Val de Loire region and Eric de Rothschild, president of the Mémorial de la Shoah, in the presence, notably, of Hélène Mouchard-Zay, co-founder of Cercil with Simone Veil.
Le Cercil-Memorial Museum of the children of the Vel d'Hiv
Presentation by Helene Mouchard-Zay in front of the Pithiviers monument
Beaune-La-Rolande, Pithiviers and Jargeau are camps where between 1941 and 1943 more than 16,000 Jews were interned, including nearly 4,700 children. Almost all were deported to Auschwitz, from where none of the children returned. Le Cercil is a place of research and a museum, which employs 7 people and welcomes 15,000 visitors each year.
