Shoah Memorial Trail in Luxembourg City
Let us never forget the victims of the Shoah!
The two-hour Shoah Memorial Trail in Luxembourg City offers an insight into the eradication of Jewish life in Luxembourg by Nazi Germany.
MemoShoah Luxembourg asbl created this memorial tour to ensure that the fate of the approximately 4,000 Jewish women and men who lived in Luxembourg on the day of the German invasion is not forgotten. The trail passes by well-known and lesser-known places that played an important role in the Shoah in occupied Luxembourg.
The tour begins at the memorial plaque in the glass hall of the city's main railway station. From October 1941 onwards, a total of 659 Jewish women and men were deported from this station in eight trains to various ghettos and extermination camps. The last of the nine stops on the memorial trail is the Mémorial de la Shoah on Boulevard Roosevelt. Here, the fate of all Jewish victims of Nazism from Luxembourg is commemorated. The Mémorial de la Shoah consists of the Kaddish Monument and the Wall of Names, on which the names of 1,225 Jewish people who did not survive Nazi Germany's anti-Semitic persecution policy are engraved.
According to current figures, 1,157 of the 4,000 Jewish inhabitants fell victim to the genocide of the Jews, the ‘Shoah’ (Holocaust), and 68 people lost their lives in the resistance against Nazi Germany or in other circumstances. In addition to the 659 people who were deported directly from Luxembourg to the East, around 600 Jewish residents of Luxembourg were deported from France and Belgium to extermination camps. A total of around 700 Jewish people from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg were murdered in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp alone.
It was not until 2016 that the Jewish victims of the Nazi regime from Luxembourg were recognised as an equal victim group alongside the two other local victim groups – those who were forced into the German military and those who fought in the resistance.
Duration
2 hours
Infos
Copyright: MemoShoah Luxembourg asbl.
1. Central Station - Deportations
Of the almost 4000 Jewish residents of Luxembourg at the beginning of the war, only about 60 were still living in Luxembourg in so-called “mixed marriages” at the end of the war. On 10 May 1940, the d...
2. Hotel Perrin, formerly known as the Hotel Sélect, 9 rue de Strasbourg
Hotel Sélect, built in 1932-33 in the station district, was an important stop for many Jews. It was located at 9 Strassburger Strasse and became Hotel Carlton after its merger with the neighboring Hot...
3. Former seat of the Nazi civil administration of Luxembourg (1940-1944)
After the invasion of German troops on 10 May 1940, Luxembourg was initially placed under German military administration, which was replaced by a German civil administration in July 1940. On 21 July 1...
4. Former jewish school
At the beginning of the 1940/41 school year, all schools in the country were required to draw up lists of names of Jewish pupils. From 1 November 1940, Jewish pupils were excluded from the public scho...
5. Villa Pauly - former Gestapo headquarters (1940-1944)
Villa Pauly was built in 1923 by the Luxembourg surgeon Dr Norbert Pauly and served as his home and medical practice. When the German troops occupied Luxembourg on 10 May 1940, Dr Pauly was on holiday...
6. Old Synagogue
Luxembourg's first synagogue since expulsions of Jews in past centuries was inaugurated in 1823 and was located near the "Kaddish" Shoah memorial, inaugurated in 2018. It was replaced by the much...
7. Albert Nussbaum: the Luxembourgish Emigration Helper
Albert Nussbaum was born on 4 February 1898 in Monneren, near Thionville. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Differdange, a small town in the south of Luxembourg, where his father Gustave Nu...
8. Location of Luxembourg's Synagogue from 1823
In 1821, the Jewish community in Luxembourg City acquired a house in Rue du Séminaire, where they established a Synagogue. In 1823, the Synagogue was inaugurated and run by Pinhas Godchaux. It had a c...
9. Shoah Memorial (Mémorial de la Shoah), Boulevard Franklin D. Roosevelt
The Shoah Memorial consists of the Kaddish Monument and the Wall in Memory of the Jewish Victims of Nazism (Mur en souvenir des victimes juives du nazisme), abbreviated as the Wall of Names. The memor...
Points of interest on the map
Audio guide
With the help of an audio guide, the two-hour Shoah Memorial Trail in Luxembourg City offers an insight into the wiping out of Jewish life in Luxembourg by Nazi Germany.