CERCIL - VEL D'HIV CHILDREN'S MEMORIAL MUSEUM

During the Second World War, over 16,000 Jews were interned in the Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande camps. Eight deportation convoys left the Loiret for Auschwitz-Birkenau. In Jargeau, 1,700 people, including 1,200 so-called nomads, were interned until December 1945. On January 27, 2011 (the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp), the museum-memorial was inaugurated in the presence of Jacques Chirac, the first French president to acknowledge the French state's responsibility for the deportation of Jews, and Simone Veil, herself a Holocaust survivor. Housed in a former nursery school, the permanent exhibition recounts the lives of Jewish internees, first men rounded up on May 14, 1941, then women and children arrested during the Vel d'Hiv roundup. Testimonies from social workers attest to the arrival and separation of mothers and children during the tragic summer of 1942. A memorial pays tribute to the more than 4,000 children deported and murdered after their internment in the Loiret region.

Portraits, letters and objects also enable visitors to put a face to these fates, giving body and meaning to history. The museum's courtyard features an original fragment of a barrack from the Beaune-la-Rolande camp.

Thanks to its founder, Hélène Mouchard-Zay, and the work of Serge Klarsfeld, CERCIL collects and preserves archives deposited by the families of internees and deportees.