Moral relationship of the institution

Editorial

Éric de Rothschild © DR.

Dear friends,

You will discover the synthesis of our main events and actions in 2023, a year rich in activities, exhibitions, meetings and training. By 2022, the Memorial had returned to pre-COVID attendance levels; by 2023, more than 543,000 people have participated in our activities in France.

We have received more than 140,000 school visitors from all our museums and schools. We trained nearly 8,000 professionals to help them teach the history of the Holocaust and genocide, while showing the mechanisms of racism, anti-Semitism and hatred that are the breeding ground.

The year since the inauguration of the Pithiviers train station has seen nearly 10,000 visitors discover this new place for teaching and education. 2023 was also marked by the 80th anniversary of the creation of the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine in April 1943 in Grenoble, by Isaac Schneersohn. A wonderful podcast narrates the formidable epic of the creation of the CDJC which finally gave birth to the Shoah Memorial.

And it was also in 2023 that the Memorial created, within its institution, a digital platform bringing together all our archive collections on the history of genocide, that of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, Tutsi in Rwanda, and the Herero and Nama in Namibia.

Indeed, the Shoah Memorial took advantage of the visit in June 2023 to Paris of Jean Damascène Bizimana, Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement of the Republic of Rwanda, and Philibert Gakwenzire, President of Ibuka Rwanda, to inaugurate the Raphael Lemkin Center on Genocide.

Among the main exhibitions of 2023, the one presenting the drawings by Riss of the Papon trial or the one about the photographer and resistant Julia Pirotte, which met a large audience. In Drancy, the exhibition on Ginette Kolinka has brought together school and individual audiences. Au Lieu de Mémoire at Chambon-sur-Lignon, the exhibition of Cabu’s drawings on the Vel d’Hiv scoop attracted nearly 13,000 visitors.

This year will have been marked by the face-to-face celebration of commemorations and reading of the names of the deportees from the convoys of 1943.
We wanted to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt and the heroism of these young people who stood up for several weeks to the powerful German army.

Finally, as part of its educational mission, the Shoah Memorial has expanded its presence on social networks to disseminate historical knowledge and counter misinformation and other falsifications of history.

As you will see, this year has been marked by an increase in expenses in a context of inflation. The Memorial needs to find new funding in order to support and support the development of its activities.

However, in the face of the sharp increase in antisemitic acts in France since October 7, 2023, the action of the Memorial is more necessary than ever, not only to educate against anti-Semitism, but also to deconstruct the amalgams, the stereotypes and to give meaning to misused and instrumentalised words.

Far from giving up or giving in to pessimism, the Memorial is energetically leading the “battle for education”.

Éric de Rothschild
President of the Holocaust Memorial

MORAL REPORT 2023 IN FRENCH

MORAL REPORT 2023 IN ENGLISH

ARCHIVES OF MORAL REPORTS SINCE 2004