The Maison d'Izieu Memorial

A place of history and remembrance open to all, the Maison d’Izieu Memorial perpetuates the memory of the Jewish children and adults who found refuge there from May 1943 until the raid on 6th April 1944.

Rooted in the present and focused on the future, it extends our thinking to crimes against humanity and the circumstances leading to them.

By evoking the memory of the Jewish children and helpers of Izieu, the Memorial sets out to fight all forms of intolerance and racism.

The house

The House is dedicated to remembrance.

The children and their helpers lived there for nearly a year. The museography aims not at reconstitution, but rather at evoking the atmosphere of the home and the presence of the deceased children.

The House therefore provides a sense of the children’s daily life. Unobtrusive signs indicate how each room was used, the children’s letters and drawings are exhibited in the refectory and a portrait of each child arrested on 6th April 1944 is displayed in the dormitories.

Approximate visiting time: 30 minutes.

The site

The house used for the Izieu home was built in the 19th century in the hamlet of Lélinaz, below the village of Izieu.

The site is isolated, overlooking the Rhône, with the Alps visible on the horizon.
The house with its long terrace extension and the two agricultural buildings (barn and silkworm breeding house or cocoonery) now accommodate the permanent exhibition, documentation centre and teaching rooms.

The site is protected and figures in the register of historical monuments.

The visit

A visit to the Maison d’Izieu enables all categories of visitor to learn about the genocide of Jewish children during the Second World War, as well as the history of the relief networks that attempted to rescue these children from the anti-Semitic persecutions of France’s Vichy government and Nazi Germany.

A visit of 2½ hours is necessary to see all the exhibitions and videos.

The museography is intentionally simple and clear. The exhibition presents only a few documents and images that young visitors may find shocking. These are located in a display case on the first floor of the Barn.

Due to the emotional nature of the subject matter and the site itself, only children aged 8-10 and older are capable of grasping the historical complexity.