Shoah Memorial

This place, we had to show you. It stops you in your tracks, but it also holds something essential: the refusal to forget.

What you're standing near began not in 2005, but in 1943, in the middle of the Nazi occupation. A man named Isaac Schneersohn gathered 40 people from Jewish life in occupied Paris, secretly, to collect evidence for future trials. That archive became crucial at the Nuremberg trials later on. 

When you step inside, the Wall of Names will stop you. 76,000 names. Each one a deportee from France. And across from that, the Wall of the Righteous honors 2,693 people who chose to act, and saved lives because of it.

In a small nearby room, you’ll find the Jewish files—compiled by the Vichy government to identify Jewish citizens and later handed over to the Nazis to facilitate their persecution. These documents are among the most confronting objects in the entire memorial. We have chosen to keep this story brief, because sometimes silence can say more than a thousand words.