an exhibition on the five towers of the Drancy camp

On the occasion of the 90th anniversary of their construction, the Drancy Shoah Memorial has been offering, since November 10, an exhibition on the history of the five towers of the city of la Muette. These skyscrapers built in the 1930s served as an internment camp during World War II. From July 1942 to August 1944, 63,000 Jews (out of the 75,000 deported from France) left Drancy.

63,000 Jews interned in Drancy

Thanks to postcards, newspaper archives and photos, the Memorial traces the history of these 14-storey towers built between 1931 and 1934. They then represent the first “big set” in France. A technical and architectural feat that will not have the expected success. The effects of the economic crisis after the stock market crash of 1929 are being felt. Housing is struggling to find buyers. Without a tenant, the project turns into a fiasco.

After having been inhabited by gendarmes who had settled there with their families, it was in this city that the Nazi occupier settled in June 1940. French and British prisoners of war were imprisoned there. Barbed wire, gatehouses and watchtowers are installed in one of the buildings at the foot of the towers, in the shape of a U. Then from August 1941, this same building was dedicated to the internment of Jews from the Paris region. An internment decided by Nazi Germany but entirely managed by the Prefecture of Police. French gendarmes are responsible for guarding the premises.

The Drancy camp, symbol of French collaboration

“The Drancy camp materializes the entire policy of collaboration. It is Pierre Laval who gives the order to intern the Jewish children when the Nazi occupiers did not ask for it”, recalls Benoît Pouvreau, one of the exhibition’s curators. “The internees arrived in a state of gripping psychological misery, all supervised by French gendarmes. Nothing is done without the French”, he continues.

When the camp was liberated in August 1944, it was the turn of the “suspected of collaboration with the enemy” to be sent there. The towers were finally destroyed in 1976 and are now replaced by the Shoah Memorial.

The exhibition “The forgotten skyscrapers of La Muette “ can be seen at the Shoah Memorial in Drancy until March 6, 2022.