The Shoah Memorial Drancy

The Drancy Memorial, located next to the Cité de la Muette in Drancy, France, represents a significant chapter in the history of the Holocaust. Originally designed in the 1930s as affordable housing, the Cité de la Muette was transformed into an internment and transit camp during World War II. Nearly 63,000 Jews were deported from Drancy to extermination camps, primarily Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The Cité de la Muette, initially a modern housing project, was built between 1931 and 1937. It featured standardized, prefabricated materials and was comprised of five 14-story towers and two-story buildings, forming a structure known as “the comb”. The only remaining part today is the horseshoe-shaped building and courtyard.

In 1937, the French Ministry of War rented the buildings for the mobile republican guard. By July 1940, the Wehrmacht requisitioned the site, initially using it to detain French and English prisoners of war. The place was easily converted into an internment camp, surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers.

From 1941, Drancy became an internment and reprisal camp. Following mass arrests in Paris, over 4,000 men were transferred to Drancy, enduring dire living conditions, lack of hygiene, and constant hunger. The camp was administered by the Paris police prefecture, and the detainees suffered from humiliations and violence.

In the summer of 1942, Drancy evolved into a transit camp, becoming the hub of Jewish deportation from France. In the summer of 1944, as Allied forces advanced, thousands of Jews were brought to Drancy for deportation. The last convoy left on August 17, 1944, and the camp was handed over to the Resistance. The remaining detainees were liberated on August 20. After Paris’s liberation, Drancy was used to detain suspected collaborators. In the following years, the site returned to its original purpose as residential housing. Commemorations began in 1946, and in 1976, a memorial sculpture by Shlomo Selinger was inaugurated.

The Drancy Shoah Memorial, initiated by the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah, opened on September 2012. The memorial features informative exhibits, personal testimonies, and archival materials that provide insight into the lives of those who passed through the camp. It also includes educational resources and programs aimed at fostering understanding of the Holocaust’s impact and promoting the values of tolerance and human rights.