Memorial sights in Paris
- Sort by:
- Popular
-
A
Mémorial de la Shoah
Established in 1956, the Memorial to the Unknown Jewish Martyr has metamorphosed into the Mémorial de la Shoah and documentation centre. The permanent collection and temporary exhibitions relate to the Holocaust and the German occupation of parts of France and Paris during WWII; the film clips of contemporary footage and interviews are heart-rending and the displays instructive and easy to follow. The actual memorial to the victims of the Shoah, a Hebrew word meaning ‘catastrophe’ and synonymous with the Holocaust, stands at the entrance, and there is a wall inscribed with the names of 76,000 men, women and children deported from France to Nazi extermination camps.
reviewed
-
B
Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation
The Memorial to the Victims of the Deportation, erected in 1962, is a haunting monument to the 160,000 residents of France (including 76,000 Jews, of whom 11,000 were children) deported to and murdered in Nazi concentration camps during WWII. A single barred ‘window’ separates the bleak, rough concrete courtyard from the waters of the Seine. Inside, the Tomb of the Unknown Deportee is flanked by hundreds of thousands of bits of back-lit glass, and the walls are etched with inscriptions from celebrated writers and poets.
reviewed
-
C
Porte St-Denis & Porte St-Martin
St-Denis Gate, a 24m-high triumphal arch, was built in 1673 to commemorate Louis XIV’s campaign along the Rhine. On the northern side, carvings represent the fall of Maastricht in the same year (note the gilded fleur-de-lys).
Two blocks east is a similar arch, the less impressive, 17m-high Porte St-Martin (St Martin Gate). It was erected two years after Porte St-Denis, to commemorate the capture of Besançon and the Franche-Comté region by Louis XIV’s armies.
reviewed
-
D
Wall for Peace Memorial
The wonderful Wall for Peace memorial of steel and etched glass facing the École Militaire (Military Academy) is by Clara Halter.
reviewed
