The Holocaust Memorial

The Holocaust Memorial opened to the public on 27 January 2005, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp and the European Holocaust Remembrance and Crime Prevention Day. Located in Paris in the historic district of Marais, it is today the reference institution in Europe for the Shoah.

Understanding the past to illuminate the future is the vocation of this place, both a place of memory, museum and documentation center. Open to a wide and diverse public, it offers many spaces and activities: a permanent exhibition on the Holocaust and the history of the Jews in France during the Second World War, a space for temporary exhibitions, an auditorium with screenings, symposia, debates, book presentations... , the Wall of Names on which are engraved the names of the 76,000 Jewish men, women and children deported from France between 1942 and 1944; the Wall of the Righteous on which appear the names of the 2,693 Righteous who protected or saved Jews, in France, during the Nazi occupation; the crypt, a place of recollection where the ashes of victims of Auschwitz and the Warsaw ghetto were disposed of; the Centre de documentation juive contemporaine (one million archival pieces, 75,000 photographs and 50,000 books) and its reading room, a multimedia space, educational spaces where children’s workshops and animations for teachers' classes take place, a library.

Intended to accommodate all audiences, the Shoah Memorial contributes to the teaching of a crime unique in the history of humanity but also participates in education and reflection on tolerance, freedom and democracy.