Izieu () is a
commune in the
Ain
Ain (, ; frp, En) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in Eastern France. Named after the Ain river, it is bordered by the Saône and Rhône rivers. Ain is located on the country's eastern edge, on the Swiss border, where it ...
department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
in eastern France.
It lies on the river
Rhône, between the cities of
Lyon and
Chambéry.
Site of World War II Jewish orphanage
Izieu was the site of a Jewish orphanage during the Second World War. However, most of the children were only separated from their parents or sent purposely in the Savoy mountains which was then under Italian rule. Italy was less oppressive in that time. On 6 April 1944, three vehicles pulled up in front of the orphanage. The
Gestapo, under the direction of the 'Butcher of Lyon'
Klaus Barbie, entered the orphanage and forcibly removed the forty-four children and their seven supervisors, throwing the crying and terrified children on to the trucks.
As a witness later recalled: 'I was on my way down the stairs when my sister shouted to me: It's the Germans, run away! I jumped out the window. I hid myself in a bush in the garden. I heard the cries of the children that were being kidnapped and I heard the shouts of the Nazis who were carrying them away.'
Following the raid on their home in Izieu, the children were shipped directly to the
"collection center" in Drancy, then put on the first available train towards the
concentration camps in the East.
Forty-two children and five adults were gassed in the concentration camp of
Auschwitz
Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
. Two of the oldest children and
Miron Zlatin, the superintendent, ended up in
Tallinn,
Estonia, and were killed by a firing squad.
The orphanage director
Sabine Zlatin survived the Gestapo raid, being away collecting funds for the institution. Some 40 years later she testified against Barbie at his trial. Towards the end of her life, she convinced the president
François Mitterrand
François Marie Adrien Maurice Mitterrand (26 October 19168 January 1996) was President of France, serving under that position from 1981 to 1995, the longest time in office in the history of France. As First Secretary of the Socialist Party, he ...
to turn the orphanage premises into a memorial.
Population
See also
*
Communes of the Ain department
References
External links
* Official Website o
Holocaust Memorial Maison d'IzieuThe Children Of Izieuthe Jewish orphanage in Izieu during the Holocaust- an online exhibition at
Yad Vashem website
Communes of Ain
Jewish French history
The Holocaust in France
Ain communes articles needing translation from French Wikipedia
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