L'Hotel de Ville and the Shoah Museum

Thursday, July 5th

Today we had lecture and went to L'Hotel de Ville (Paris's city hall) where there was an exhibition on the deportation of Jewish children from France and also the heroes who hid some children as well. I found a letter written by a Polish boy in French that just touched my heart. He wrote about how his mother was born in Poland and was a very hard worker. His father took a job in Paris and they all moved here. They were Jewish and he talked about all of the hardships they were facing.

L'Hotel de Ville

Afterwards, we went to the Shoah museum. The museum was well designed and paid tribute to all those victims of the Holocaust and World War II as well as the many heroes. It's still astonishing to think that such an act could occur in the world for so long. Even when brave Polish men like Czeslaw Mordowicz and Jerzy Wesolowski escaped Auschwitz and Birkenau and then risked their lives to tell their accounts of what had happened it took years before anything was done to stop the extermination. I also give so much credit to those who risked their lives to run secret operations to help those in trouble such as Irena Sendler and Jan Karski, who I've learned much about from my dad.

To be in the presence of the belongings, outfits, pictures, personal letters, and the names of all those who lost their lives was incredibly impacting.. it was such a disappointing and catastrophic time in our world. I only hope that people will truly learn from this point in our history and a calamity like this will never occur again.

After the museum, we walked around Marais which is known as the Jewish community in Paris. This area was specifically targeted when the Nazi's invaded France. We had just eaten but Danielle and I are planning on going back to get a falafel from this area, which we hear are the best in all of Paris.

Marais - Jewish Neighborhood