The Shoah Memorial is active in the areas of research, documentation, publishing (La Revue d’Histoire de la Shoah), teaching, adult training and, with the museum, cultural mediation through cultural activities and visits to places of remembrance.
The Shoah Memorial has a Documentation Center divided into three departments: the archives, library and photo library. The collections include over a million documents, photos, books, archival films, posters, postcards and objects. Visitors can consult them in a unique setting that transmits information and knowledge about the Holocaust, especially the history of France’s Jews during the Second World War. Since its inception as the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center) in 1943, donations and acquisitions of Holocaust-related materials have continuously expanded the collections. This unique archive is a first-rate tool for anybody studying the destruction of Europe’s Jews.
The Shoah Memorial museum has a permanent exhibition: 12 chronological and thematic sequences trace the history of France’s Jews during the Holocaust. Based on the documentation center’s archives, the exhibition shifts back and forth between individual and collective history. Every year, the museum also hosts temporary shows drawing their themes from history, art and literature. They open up windows not just on the fate of Jews in other European countries, but also the 20th century’s other genocides.
The Shoah Memorial has run campaigns to raise young people’s awareness for several years. In response to the alarming rise of racism and anti-Semitism, the Memorial wishes to step up its teaching activities, especially outside its walls. The expanding course offer now includes more inter-museum visits, training sessions in the provinces, delocalized workshops and exhibitions, study trips for students to places of remembrance and a CNRD preparation program. Since 2016, the History and Memory convention signed with the DILCRA has enabled the Memorial to develop initiatives to roll back fear and hatred in young people.
Police officers also take courses at the Memorial to increase their knowledge about the history of the Holocaust and the role the police played in that period.
In the framework of the development of alternatives to prison and of sentences with an educational value, the Memorial has forged partnerships with the Paris, Lyon and Aix-en-Provence appeals courts to create citizenship courses for offenders convicted of committing racist or anti-Semitic acts.
More than ever, the Shoah Memorial is expanding its work and activities outside its walls to prevent racism, anti-Semitism and genocide, bringing exhibitions, talks and film screenings to many cities. Pedagogical teams travel to various places to organize and run workshops. Some of the Memorial’s exhibitions travel internationally. For students and teachers, the Memorial also sets up training courses and seminars to prevent racism, hatred and genocide.
Based on lists of Jews deported from France, the Memorial helps children, grandchildren and other family members find out what happened to relatives or assists them in documenting claims for financial compensation. Individuals wishing to provide information or donate archives may directly contact the Memorial, which will send a staff member to collect them.
The Shoah Memorial hosts the Centre Georges Devereux, which holds a discussion group of people who were hidden children during the Holocaust one Sunday per month.
Psychologists from the Centre Georges Devereux run the group with support from the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah.
The next meetings will take place on :
(free, no reservation required).
Information :
Centre Georges Devereux
Tel. : 01 77 32 10 64 or by e-mail : accueil@devereux.fr
Every year, the Shoah Memorial organizes study trips to Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. They are open to all, school groups as well as individuals. The Memorial also provides assistance and advice on request in organizing trips to all the places of remembrance in France and abroad.
Since 2015, the Network of Places of Remembrance in France has brought together 11 historic sites having connections to the history and memory of the persecution, deportation, extermination, rescue and resistance of the Jews of France during the Second World War. Encouraging the development of ties between its members, and relying on young ambassadors of memory, the network promotes knowledge and transmission of the history of the Holocaust on the national and local levels, affirming republican and democratic values, especially the fight against racism and anti-Semitism. Since 2010, the 11 institutions have met on January 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
See the network’s website (in french)
The Revue d’histoire de la Shoah is just the tip of the iceberg of the Memorial’s research activities. Founded in 1946, the journal focuses on the Holocaust and the reflection it has spawned in various cultural fields. It is opening its scope of research up to the 20th century’s other genocides as well. The Memorial also publishes works on the history of the Holocaust in partnership with Calmann-Lévy.
