The Drancy Internment Camp was an assembly and detention camp for confining Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps during the German military administration of Occupied France during World War II. It is located in Drancy, a northeastern suburb of Paris, France. During its use as an internment camp, from June 1942 to July 1944, more than 67,000 French, Polish, and German Jews - including 6,000 children - have been deported from the camp in 64 rail transports. When the Allied forces liberated the camp on 17 August 1944, they found only 1,542 survivor.
As part of a commitment to preserve the historical memory of the horrors of racism, the Youth for Peace of Paris and Charenton went as "pilgrims" to visit the camp - nowadays "hidden" within a residential center.
The young pilgrims made an appeal for global peace and laid flowers next to the memorial shrine, renewing their commitment “to resist the logic of walls dividing people by building every day a new humanity open to others and respectful of all".
And concluding: "We feel the responsibility of a new audacity, to overcome hatred and to rebel against injustice and poverty. We are committed to work for a Europe where everyone can live together, to oppose any form of violence and choose the way of encounter and friendship. "
Join the next Global Friendship international event, in Cracow from 19th to 21st July.
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