In the heart of the bustling Parisian city, a memorial hides: The Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation. Designed by Georges-Henri Pingusson, it was inaugurated by Charles de Gaulle in 1962. The memorial is located on the site of a former morgue, underground behind Notre Dame on Île de la Cité. It features two chapels containing earth and bones from concentration camps and is shaped like a ship's prow.
The walls display literary excerpts by authors including Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Inside the narrow, dimly lit chamber is the tomb of an unknown deportee who was killed at the camp in Natzweiler-Struthof. Along both walls are 200,000 glass crystals with light shining through, meant to symbolize each of the deportees who died in the concentration camps, leading to a single bright light at the end of the tunnel.
The memorial is open every day except the first Monday of every month and on January 1st, May 1st, and December 25th. Opening hours are from 10am to 6:30pm, with last access to the crypt at 6:15pm. On the last Sunday of April each year, an annual Day of Remembrance ceremony is hosted at the memorial to honor the victims.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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