A Visit to the Mémorial de la Shoah

In my last post, I mentioned that I was leaving for vacation. What I didn’t say there was that I was on my way to France, where I participated in the Paris Writers Workshop and tried to begin transforming a failed short story into a novel.

Beyond that, I was able to stroll around my beloved Paris. Many years ago, I made my first visit to the Mémorial de la Shoah located there, and I returned to its museum last week.

This time, I went to the museum especially to see a current exhibition titled “ALYAH-BETH: L’Emigration clandestine des juifs depuis la France vers la Palestine.” As you might discern even without knowing French, this exhibition focuses on Jewish emigration from France to Palestine, particularly in the years between the end of World War II and the establishment of the State of Israel.

If you can read French, and plan on being in Paris before the exhibition closes on September 28, I highly recommend a visit. If you’re limited to a virtual tour, you can get a sense of what the exhibition offers here (but you’ll still need to read French).

It’s also worth mentioning that on the English version of the museum’s Web site, Anglophones will find the following note: “For the benefit of a growing number of English-speaking visitors, the Shoah Memorial is organizing on the second Sunday of every month, a guided tour in English, free of charge. Start of the tour at 3.00 pm in the lobby. Prior reservation is not required.”