Izieu

Infobox Commune de France
nomcommune=Izieu
région=Rhône-Alpes
département=Ain
arrondissement=Belley
canton=Belley
insee=01193
cp=01300
maire=Jean-Philippe Gardat
mandat=2008-2014
intercomm=Rhône et Gland dite Terre d’eaux
longitude=5.64416666667
latitude=45.6552777778
alt moy=350 m
alt mini=211
alt maxi=758 m
hectares=767
km²=7.67
sans=181
date-sans=1999
dens= 23.6|

Izieu is a commune in the department of Ain in eastern France. It lies on the Rhône River between the cities of Lyon and Chambery.

History

Izieu was the site of a Jewish orphanage during the Second World War. On April 6, 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, save yourself! 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. Two of the oldest children and Miron Zlatin, the superintendent, ended up in Tallinn, Estonia, and were killed by a firing squad.

One survivor of Auschwitz revealed during Klaus Barbie's trial what happened to the children: "I asked myself where were the children who arrived with us? In the camp there wasn't a single child to be seen. Then those who had been there for a while informed us of the reality. 'You see that chimney, the one smoke never stops coming out of ... you smell that odor of burned flesh ... ?'"

ee also

*Communes of the Ain department

References

"Based on the article in the French Wikipedia."

External links

* [http://www.izieu.alma.fr/ Holocaust Memorial Maison d'Izieu]
* [http://www.izieu.com/ The Children Of Izieu]