The Cité de la Muette in Drancy (a northern suburb of Paris) was, between 1941 and 1944, an internment and then assembly camp for the Jews of France ahead of their deportation.
A site at the heart of the history of the Holocaust in France
Located in a northern suburb of Paris, the Cité de la Muette in Drancy, built in the 1930s as social housing, became under the Occupation an internment camp and then the main assembly point for the Jews of France before their deportation. Between 1941 and 1944, nearly 63,000 of the 75,721 Jews deported from France were interned at Drancy and then deported, mainly to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Deportees were first taken to Le Bourget-Drancy station, and then, from July 1943, to Bobigny station, used specifically for deportation convoys. The vast majority of convoys of Jews deported from France departed from these two stations.
At the Liberation, the toll was devastating: only 5.2% of the Jews deported from France returned. The Cité de la Muette remains today one of the most important sites for understanding the history of the persecution and deportation of the Jews of France.
A site of memory and transmission
A major site in the history of the Holocaust in France, the Mémorial de la Shoah in Drancy opened in 2012, close to the former camp. It is today a place of memory, research and transmission. Exhibitions, archives, testimonies and educational initiatives raise awareness of the camp’s history and pass on the memory of its victims and survivors.
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SNCF, committed to preserving memory
SNCF has been contributing to the preservation and transmission of this memory for several decades. In 1988, it donated a memorial railway wagon to the City of Drancy, intended for the camp’s historical conservatory and installed at the entrance to the Cité de la Muette.
In 2005, SNCF supported the restoration of the escapees’ tunnel, dug in 1943 by internees attempting to escape the camp. Discovered by the Germans before its completion, the tunnel bears witness to the acts of resistance and escape attempts carried out by the internees of Drancy.
SNCF also contributed, in 2002, to funding the documentary film Drancy, dernière étape avant l’abîme, directed by Cécile Clairval-Milhaud, helping to raise public awareness of the history of the camp and its internees.
