Memorial De La Shoah

After meeting you in Paris, we will be starting our tour with the Holocaust Museum. The growth of the Holocaust research center, one of Europe’s first, and the expansion of the Memorial’s activities, especially towards schools, led the Memorial-CDJC Board of Trustees to take a new step: creating the Shoah Memorial. Time permits we will visit both the Shoah Memorial AND the Drancy Shoah Memorial. After the tour we will be driving to Dunkerque.

Dunkirk

After breakfast we will start our tour of the British evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940, Operation Dynamo. The Mole, the beach at Malo les Bains and the museum are included. We also visit the British cemetery. After the tour we will be driving to Dieppe.

Dieppe

After breakfast in Dieppe, we will be starting our tour of Operation Jubilee, with a stop at Berneval beach and in Dieppe itself, as well as the Canadian cemetery. After the tour we will be heading to Bayeux.

Bayeux War Cemetery

Arrival in Bayeux and visit of the Commonwealth War Cemetery. There was little actual fighting in Bayeux although it was the first French town of importance to be liberated. Bayeux War Cemetery is the largest Commonwealth cemetery of the Second World War in France and contains burials brought in from the surrounding districts and from hospitals that were located nearby. BAYEUX WAR CEMETERY, which was completed in 1952, contains 4,144 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 338 of them unidentified. There are also over 500 war graves of other nationalities, the majority German. The BAYEUX MEMORIAL stands opposite the cemetery and bears the names of more than 1,800 men of the Commonwealth land forces who died in the early stages of the campaign and have no known grave. They died during the landings in Normandy, during the intense fighting in Normandy itself, and during the advance to the River Seine in August.

Omaha Beach

The full day tour will cover the American landing beaches, it is a comprehensive tour of Omaha beach, Utah Beach, Pointe du Hoc, the American cemetery and Sainte Mère Eglise.

Pegasus Bridge

This full day tour of the DDay landing beaches covers the British and Canadian sectors, and includes Pegasus Bridge Sword Beach, Juno beach, and Arromanches.

Memorial de Montormel

To put a conclusion to our Normandy tour, we will be covering the end of the battle of Normandy, the Falaise gap. After the tour, we will be on our way to the Loire Valley.

Chenonceaux

On the banks of the Cher the chateau has a unique situation during WWII, During the Second World War, the château was bombed by the Germans in June 1940. It was also a means of escaping from the Nazi-occupied zone on one side of the River Cher to the "free" zone on the opposite bank. Occupied by the Germans, the château was bombed by the Allies on 7 June 1944, when the chapel was hit and its windows destroyed. The history of the Château de Chenonceau is defined by a an almost uninterrupted succession of women who built, embellished, protected, restored and saved it. The first château was a medieval château dating from the 12th and 13th centuries, of which only the dungeon remains: the Tour des Marques. The château in its current form was built between 1513 and 1517, by Thomas Bohier and above all his wife, Catherine Briçonnet. The château in its current form was built between 1513 and 1517, by Thomas Bohier and above all his wife, Catherine Briçonnet.

Oradour-sur-Glane

We will start our drive to Oradour early morning. On 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 643 civilians, including non-combatant women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company as collective punishment for resistance activity in the area. Visiting this site is a must-do for a this tour and should not be missed by anyone with interest in WWII.

Musee Memorial des Enfants du Vel d'Hiv Orleans

Drive to Orleans where we will continue with the Holocaust at the CERCIL museum. The CERCIL is a Memorial Museum to 4400 Jewish Children detained in the Loiret internment camps of Beaune-la-Rolande and Pitiviers and eventually deported to the Auschwitz and Sobibor extermination camps. We will then drive to Paris where this fantastic week will end.