Each year, the Heritage Days give the general public the chance to discover historic, cultural, and patrimonial sites that are sometimes overlooked, through tours, exhibitions, and activities. These days, staged across France, celebrate the richness of tangible and intangible heritage while spotlighting places of memory. On September 20, 2026, the Shoah Memorial in Drancy teams up with the event to offer visitors an immersion in history, through a site that is both unique and deeply meaningful.
Located opposite the Cité de la Muette, the Drancy Shoah Memorial was inaugurated in 2012. It pays tribute to the thousands of Jews interned in this transit camp between 1941 and 1944, before their deportation to the extermination camps. The building, designed by architect Roger Diener, houses permanent and temporary exhibitions, testimonials and invaluable historical documentation. This place of remembrance complements the Shoah Memorial in Paris, and plays an essential role in transmitting history to younger generations.
A visit to the Drancy Shoah Memorial during the Heritage Days is an opportunity to plunge into the heart of an essential site for understanding the history of the Second World War and the Shoah in France. It's also an opportunity to discover a site of great symbolic significance, where remembrance and education combine to raise public awareness. The guided tours and events organized for the event will provide a precise and emotional understanding of history, in a setting conducive to reflection and meditation.
A joint tour of the Drancy Shoah Memorial and the Bobigny Deportation Station Memorial
The Shoah Memorial stands opposite the Cité de la Muette in Drancy, a site originally intended for social housing. Requisitioned by Nazi Germany in 1941, it became a prison camp and then the main transit camp for Jews deported from France during the war. Between 1942 and 1944, more than 63,000 Jews were held there before deportation. From July 1943, the Bobigny station became the primary departure point to Auschwitz-Birkenau, with over 22,500 Jews leaving from there. Today, both sites preserve and pass on the memory of the Shoah.
ITINERARY
Meet at the Shoah Memorial in Drancy at 10:30 AM. Tour lasts 1 hour 15 minutes.
Travel by public transportation to the memorial at the Deportation Station in Bobigny (you will be accompanied).
Visit the Deportation Station Memorial in Bobigny. Tour lasts 1 hour 15 minutes.
Note: A transit ticket or Navigo pass is required for the bus journey.
Participation requirements: Booking required | Free - https://billetterie.memorialdelashoah.org/fr/evenement/visite-couplee-drancy
Schedule: Sunday, September 20, 2026 — 10:30 AM to 1:00 PM
A two-voiced tour: The Muette garden city in Drancy, from modern utopia to tragedy (1930–1945).
This tour offers a vivid plunge into the complex history of the Cité de la Muette. Designed as a modern garden city for working-class families, it embodies the urban utopias of the 20th century. Influenced by the ideas of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM), architects Eugène Beaudouin and Marcel Lods introduced groundbreaking construction concepts. Yet the site’s fate shifts dramatically under the Occupation: envisioned as a beacon of social emancipation, the cité becomes a detention camp.
This walk traces the evolution of the place and its tragic trajectory during World War II.
Presented in partnership with the Île-de-France Regional Association of Garden Cities and the Drancy town hall.
Participation requirements: Free | Reservation required - https://billetterie.memorialdelashoah.org/fr/evenement/visite-a-deux-voix
Hours: Sunday, September 20, 2026, 10:30 AM – 1:00 PM
Fates entwined: Hélène Berr and Charlotte Salomon
Interned in Drancy and deported to Auschwitz from Bobigny station, Hélène Berr and Charlotte Salomon left exceptional testimonies that continue to give their voices life. This immersive journey invites you to explore their intertwined destinies through writing, art, music and poetry.
At the Shoah Memorial in Drancy, the guided tour will be punctuated by readings from Hélène Berr’s Journal by actress Maud Landau. It will continue at the Deportation Station Memorial in Bobigny with an immersive guided walk in the form of a poetic and sonic promenade around Salomon’s work titled Vie? Ou Théâtre?
ITINERARY
Meet at the Shoah Memorial in Drancy at 14:00. Tour lasts 1h15.
Travel by public transport to the Deportation Memorial in Bobigny (you will be accompanied).
Tour of the Deportation Memorial in Bobigny. Duration: 1h15.
A transit ticket or a Navigo pass is required for the bus journey.
Participation conditions: Free | Booking required - https://billetterie.memorialdelashoah.org/fr/evenement/destins-croises-helene-berr-et-charlotte-salomon
Schedule: Sunday, September 20, 2026 — 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM
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Dates and Opening Time
On September 20, 2026
Location
Drancy Shoah Memorial
112 Avenue Jean Jaurès
93700 Drancy
Route planner
Access
Metro line 5 stop "Bobigny Pablo Picasso", then bus 251 stop "Place du 19 mars 1962". RER B station "Le Bourget", then bus 143 stop "Square de la Libération". Buses 151, 251, 551 and 684 stop at "Place du 19 mars 1962". A Paris-Drancy shuttle bus is also available, free of charge and without reservation, one Sunday a month: - 2:00 pm: departure from the Mémorial de la Shoah-Paris (17, rue Geoffroy l'Asnier 75004 Paris) - 5:30 pm: bus returns to the Mémorial de la Shoah-Paris. Arrival in Paris around 6:15-6:30 pm.
Prices
Free
More information
Visits from 10:30 am to 12:30 pm and from 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm.
