The mission of the Shoah Memorial created in 1943 in hiding is to transmit and teach the consequences of racism and anti-Semitism in history, that of the Shoah and genocide, throughout France, Europe and the world. Educate against anti-Semitism, racism, hatred of others that lead to barbarism.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Islamist terrorist organization whose plan is to murder Jews and destroy the state of Israel, carried out a barbaric massacre of defenseless civilians. Elderly people, young girls, children were murdered, raped and taken hostage..
We are all upset, wounded and in solidarity with the State of Israel and its entire population as we were with the victims and their families after Montauban, Toulouse, the hyper-hide, Charlie-Hebdo, the Bataclan, Nice and all the deadly Islamist terrorist attacks that hit our country. Especially those who caused the deaths of teachers Jonathan Sandler, Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard. In France and Israel, Islamist terrorism has only one face, that of barbarism and hatred.
We think especially of the 240 hostages at the hands of Hamas among them 40 children, including an infant. 40 French were murdered and 8 missing, some of whom are among the hostages. We also think of our fellow historians, of our counterparts in Yad Vashem, of the Kibbutz of the Warsaw ghetto fighters, of Massua and of all the survivors of the Holocaust.
Events in Israel and Gaza have led to an unprecedented rise in anti-Semitic acts, not only in France but globally. Alongside security, political and legal responses, education plays a central role.
The mission of the Memorial is to educate against barbarism and hatred of others by teaching the consequences of racism and anti-Semitism in the history of the Holocaust and genocide. We teach tolerance by valuing the values that underpin our republic and democracy.
The Memorial tries through education, reflection, the development of critical thinking, to dismantle stereotypes and prejudices as well as all forms of propaganda whose risk is extremist indoctrination, conspiracy, anti-Semitic, racist or denial.
“Not a Frenchman will be free until the Jews enjoy their full rights. Not a Frenchman will be safe as long as a Jew in France and around the world can fear for his life” Jean Paul Sartre, 1946, in «reflection on the Jewish question».
The Holocaust Memorial will resolutely continue and amplify its work, in particular its educational work against the consequences of intolerance, antisemitism and racism in the history of the Holocaust and genocide.
