Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation

The Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation sits at the tip of the Ile de la Cite. It presents a narrow, fortress-like concrete entrance that descends into the earth. Inside the hexagonal crypt, two hundred thousand glass crystals glow in the dim light, each representing a life deported from France to Nazi concentration camps. In the nineteen sixties, architect Georges-Henri Pingusson designed this space to force visitors into silence, echoing the isolation of those who never returned from the camps.