The Regional Council of Centre-Val de Loire and the Shoah Memorial signed on 4 July 2018 a partnership agreement in support of the Cercil-Memorial Museum for children from the 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 in Loiret (Cercil) had joined the Memorial, a private foundation recognized as of public utility. Today, the Centre-Val de Loire Region is committed to supporting this association, which has become a local branch of the Shoah Memorial Foundation, over a period of three years, in its annual programme of transmission and awareness-raising aimed at the public and schools. (exhibitions, conferences, documentaries, book publications...), in the pursuit of the cooperation project with the Land of Saxony-Anhalt and in its operation.
The Region provides 80,000 euros in 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 Shoah Memorial, in the presence, notably, of Hélène Mouchard-Zay, co-founder of Cercil with Simone Veil.
The Cercil-Memorial Museum of the children of the Vel d'Hiv
Presentation by Helene Mouchard-Zay in front of the monument of Pithiviers
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 which 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.
