Cité de la Muette was a collective housing unit built in the 1930s but was never completed. In 1941 it became an internment camp and then, in 1942 a camp to group together Jews of France before deporting them to the extermination camps. Between March 1942 and August 1944, around 63,000 of the 76,000 Jews deported from France passed through Drancy. Cité de la Muette was inhabited again as of 1948 and has gradually become a memorial for Drancy: commemorative plaques, erection of a memorial monument, buildings listed as historical monuments since 2001. 

A place of history and education open to everybody, the Drancy Shoah Memorial covers an area of 2,500 m² on five levels. It has a permanent exhibition on the camp's history, several educational rooms, a documentation centre and a conference room. With its large windows facing Cité de la Muette, the dialogue between the two is constant. Just after entering, visitors can see on the wall the faces of 12,000 Jews who were interned at Drancy between 1941 and 1944.

The permanent exhibition uses video testimonials, archive documents and photographs from the period to tell the history of the Drancy camp and the daily life of those interned here from 1941 to 1944, the organisation of the deportations from 1942, and the construction of the camp's memory after the war. Ten documentaries by Patrick Rotman are broadcast. In the middle of the exhibition, the House of Children, designed by Delphine Gleize, allows visitors to learn the fate of children who were interned and deported.

A number of educational activities are possible. For school children there are educational workshops, memory trails, general and themed visits and dedicated areas. In the documentation centre, scanned publications, photographs, films and archives on the history of Drancy can be viewed. School children and the general public can carry out research on the camp and on the people to whom this site is dedicated. A number of testimonials will be collected from the population of Drancy in connection with local associations to improve the collections.

The Drancy Shoah Memorial is complementary to the Paris Shoah Memorial. It is a place of mediation between the site of the former camp and the public, a place of history and transmission. It will allow school children and the general public to be better informed of the history of Cité de la Muette and particularly the central role of the Drancy camp in excluding French Jews in the Second World War and in the implementation of the "Final solution" by the Nazis in France, with collaboration from the Vichy government.

Drancy Shoah Memorial - 110-112, avenue Jean-Jaurès - 93700 Drancy
Tel.: +33 (0)1 77 48 78 20 – Email: contact@memorialdelashoah.org

www.memorialdelashoah.org

Article by the Memorial on the inauguration
 

Reception for groups and school parties:
Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 01 18 01 – Email: education@memorialdelashoah.org

Getting there:

Public transport - RER B to "Le Bourget"
then bus 143 to "Square de la Libération".
Bus 143 and 703, stop at "Square de la Libération"
Bus 151, 251, 684 and 551, stop at "Place du 19 mars 1962"

By car - Market car park.

Autolib terminal: 105, avenue Jean-Jaurès

Paris-Drancy shuttle:
Every Sunday until 31 March 2013 (inclusive).
2pm: leave from Mémorial de la Shoah (17 rue Geoffroy-l’Asnier, 75004 Paris)
arrive at Mémorial de Drancy at 2.45/3pm
5pm: bus returns to Mémorial de Paris
 

From the summer of 1943 to the summer of 1944, the Bobigny train station, a vast area including a freight station and a passenger station in the outer ring of Parisian suburbs, became the centre for deporting the Jews held at the Drancy concentration camp, located a little over 2 km away. For this it replaced the Le Bourget station which, starting in March 1942, had been used as the main deportation centre for French Jews.

After World War II, this 3.5-hectare site was used for industrial purposes by a scrap metal dealer who moved in 2005. This place of remembrance, listed on the supplementary Historical Monuments inventory, is the only example in France of a deportation train station that was abandoned and preserved in a condition close to its original layout. It is therefore a unique site.

Registration on the Seine-Saint Denis Tourist Office website:

Bobigny Tourist Office – Tel.: +33 (0)1 48 30 83 29 - E-mail address: otsi@ville-bobigny.fr

School and group visits (by appointment):

Tél : 01 41 60 99 91 - Adresse mail : anne.bourgon@ville-bobigny.fr

"Bridgehead on the Marne" (Noisy-le-Grand - 93) 

1871.

The first ring of forts built with the purpose of protecting the capital from the enemy did not prevent the defeat of 1870.

Fort de Villiers

Avenue Paul Belmondo

93160 Noisy-le-Grand

E-mail : contact@asfv.eu

Visits Warning! Fort de Villiers is not open to visitors. The site is dangerous and is not protected by security (entry is prohibited). 

Contact the Mairie in Noisy-le-Grand to request access.

Bibliographical sources Annals of the National Assembly.  Government bills, proposals and reports. 1874 List of the law bills of the French Republic. 1874

Fort de Villiers

Quizz : Forts et citadelles

To fly like a bird and get closer to the stars the human dreamed, invented, then constructed any kind of machines : balloons, planes, helicopters, rockets, satellites. This is the history of a dream, which is finally attained and which is told by the air and space museums

The French air and space museum is the most ancient aeronautic museum of the world. It recounts the amazing adventure of the pioneers from the beginning of our century, the beginning of a long journey which will lead 50 years later the man to walk on the moon.
Created after the First World war it will be built in the Brouget airport in 1975. Since the opening of the great gallery where the most ancient machines are exhibited, and the inauguration in April 1995 of the two new halls, the air and space museum shows through a collection of almost 200 machines and 300 artistic objects a complete panorama of the aerospace, starting from the first balloons in 1793 and ending with the Ariane 5. rocket.
Address : Air and space museum (Musée de l'air et de l'espace) Airport Paris - Le Bourget BP 173 93 352 Le Bourget cedex Information : +33 (O)1 49 92 70 00 Home : +33 (O)1 49 92 70 62 E-mail : ecrire@museeairespace.fr Timetable : The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday : 10:00 to 18:00, 1 April to 30 September and from 10:00 to 17:00 from October 1 to March 31. Closed Mondays. Exceptional closing December 25 and January 1 Public Transports : Motorway: from the A1, exit Bourget; from the A3, exit Blanc-Mesnil RER (Train) : line B, stop "gare du Bourget" then take bus number 152. Subway : line 7. Tariffs : Access to permanent collections is free. For entertainment, visit the museum.

The Saint-Denis art and history museum is housed in the town’s former Carmelite convent. Founded in 1625, the convent was enlarged by Louis XV’s daughter, Madame Louise of France, following her time there from 1770 to 1787.

The building was bought by the town council in 1972 and has been used as a museum since 1981. The archaeology collections in the old refectory display the results of digs carried out since 1973 by the Saint-Denis Archaeology Unit. Between 1973 and 1992, 33 000 objects were unearthed, added to which are millions of potsherds, animal bones and building materials.

They constitute an important documentary record of everyday life in the Middle Ages, from various angles: home and crafts, music and games, cooking and diet, clothes and jewellery, etc.

The former sacristy, converted into a parlour in the 18th century, houses the collections from the old hospital: paintings, sculptures, decorative ironwork and many documents on hospital life under the Ancien Régime.

An adjoining room known as the “Apothecary’s Room”, presents a remarkable series of pharmaceutical ceramics produced in the workshops of Rouen, Never and Saint-Cloud. Restored cells on the first floor give an insight into the workings and everyday life of the convent.

A reconstruction of Louise of France’s cell adjoins a display of liturgical ornaments, monastic artworks, Guillot canvases, and masterpieces like Laurent de la Hyre’s triptych Mary Magdalen at the Foot of the Cross or François Perrier’s St Augustine offering his heart to the Baby Jesus.

Split between two floors of the Louis XV pavilion, the Paul Éluard collection sheds light on the private life and political engagement of the poet and co-founder of the Surrealist movement, through original documents (manuscripts, letters, photographs), original editions, personal belongings and books from his own library.

Still on the second floor, in the 350 sqm of apartments where Louis XV’s daughters stayed when visiting the convent, is an important collection on the Commune and Sieges of Paris.

The collection, begun in 1930, comprises over 10 000 pieces, including weapons and a wealth of images: Épinal prints, portraits and caricatures of generals, letters, posters, lithographs, photographs, paintings and sculptures by artists of the time: André Gill, André Lançon, Draner, Klenck and Jules Girardet.

Thus, alongside the red flag of the church of Saint-Leu on Boulevard de Sébastopol are Georges Salendre’s bust of Gustave Courbet, Philippoteaux’s Fighting in Père-Lachaise, caricatures by Daumier, Cham and Le Petit, Appert’s photographic portraits of Communards, military illustrations by Bertrall, and anti-Communard photomontages by Bruno Braquehais.

Political posters and periodicals such as L’Île des Pins, a newspaper of Communards deported to New Caledonia, round off the political presentation of events. Objects from everyday life tell of the struggle for survival during the siege.

A collection of old books, historical research by pioneers (Camille Pelletan, Louis Veuillot, Henri Monin), monographs and memoirs of Communards, military surveys (Pichon), books on the caricatures and writings about the provincial communes (Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille) are all available for researchers to complement their visit to the museum.

Other services

The Cultural and Educational Outreach Service invites the public of all ages to explore the collections through guided tours, activities and workshops.

Meanwhile, researchers can consult the works and documents in the drawing collection, housed in the former convent printing house.

The book and gift shop sells a wide variety of reproductions and postcards in connection with the museum’s collections.

Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Saint-Denis 
22 bis avenue Gabriel Péri - 93200 Saint-Denis
Tel.: +33 (0)1 42 43 05 10 - Bookings: +33 (0)1 42 43 37 57
Email: musee@ville-saint-denis.fr

Getting there

Metro (Line 13) - Station: Saint-Denis Porte de Paris (exit 4)
Bus: 154, 254, 177, 255, 170
Car: A1 and A86 - exit Saint-Denis Porte de Paris
Parking: Porte de Paris and Basilique