Mémorial de la Shoah de Drancy

The Mémorial de la Shoah de Drancy (Drancy Shoah Memorial) is located at the site of the former Camp de Drancy, a major internment, transit, and deportation site chiefly for Jewish peoples and operated by French and later German SS authorities from 1941 to 1944. Established in a large residential building built between 1931 and 1934 and designed as a modernist, urban living space with the name ‘Cité de la Muette’ (‘The Silent City’), the camp functioned as the most important transit point for French and foreign Jews taken in roundups and sent to death camps, usually Auschwitz. Initially administered by French authorities, the camp was taken under the direct authority of German SS Hauptsturmführer Alois Brunner from July 3, 1943 as part of increased deportations as the Shoah continued; by 1944, more than 65 000 Jews had been deported from Drancy.

The site today contains a Memorial to the Drancy Deportations, created in 1976 by sculptor Shelomo Selinger, as well as a train carriage used in the deportations, place on the site in 1988. In September 2012, an additional indoor facility was opened: the Mémorial de la Shoah de Drancy contains a permanent exhibition in French and English on the history of Drancy, the camp, and its internees and deportees in the context of the Shoah, as well as a documentation centre for the camp and pedagogical spaces for classes and conferences.