Mémorial des enfants d'Izieu

The Maison d'Izieu, a village in the Ain, welcomed from May 1943 a colony of Jewish children and their educators, sheltered from persecution. The children lived there a daily life as ordinary as possible: school, vegetable garden, shows and artistic activities. On 6 April 1944, on the orders of Klaus Barbie, the children and their carers were arrested, then deported.

After the trial of Klaus Barbie in 1987, Sabine Zlatin, a Resistance member, and the prefect Pierre-Marcel Wiltzer founded the memorial association. The building was listed as a historic monument in 1991 and recognised as a national memorial in 1993. François Mitterrand inaugurated it on 24 April 1994, fifty years to the day after the raid. Today, the place works as a museum: permanent exhibitions, guided tours and educational workshops deal there with the history of the Shoah in France. It receives several tens of thousands of visitors each year, notably school classes.

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