Deportation Martyrs Memorial - Ile-de-la-Cite

Inaugurated on April 12, 1962 by General de Gaulle, then President of the French Republic, the Martyrs of the Deportation memorial recalls certain characteristic aspects of the concentration camp world: imprisonment, oppression, impossible escape, “the long ordeal of wear and tear, the will to exterminate and debase”.

A long, gated corridor features 200,000 glass rods on its walls, symbolizing the countless victims of deportation to Nazi camps. At the entrance to this corridor is a tomb containing the mortal remains of an unknown deportee who died in the Natzweiler-Struthof camp and was transferred here on April 10, 1962.

After descending the steps, the view over the Seine helps to create a strange sensation in which the visitor is as if outside the world that continues to exist and move outside.

To the right and left, two diverticulums contain, inserted in triangular niches, urns containing earth from the various camps and ashes brought back from the crematoria.

Inscribed on the walls are excerpts from poems and quotations by Robert Desnos, Paul Éluard, Louis Aragon, Vercors, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Jean-Augustin Maydieu and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Upstairs, accessible only on request, several rooms present an exhibition.