Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Florence Gould Foundation and the Alumnae Association of Northwestern University, the documents in this digital archive invite the visitor to explore the Picpus Cemetery in Paris and examine the nature of commemorative monuments. The Archive is an educational resource open to students and researchers worldwide.
The Digital Archive incorporates and expands research material compiled for the making of the award-winning documentary "Picpus, Walled Garden of Memory." The film is a study of the historical Picpus Cemetery, the site of a mass grave of some 1300 victims of the Reign of Terror in 1794, and the burial site of General Lafayette. It also investigates the collusion of Vichy France with Nazi Germany; the Rothschild Hospital, which shares a common wall with Picpus, was transformed into a prison hospital for French and European Jews, incarcerated there before their eventual deportation to death camps.
This site represents the combined efforts of a large team of academic scholars and technologists led by principal investigator Janine Spencer, initiator of the project. Research on the Rothschild hospital was led by Anne Landau, who has authored a series of narrative chapters. Additional contributors are named in the site credits.
Instructors looking to use the archive's content for the teaching of French should begin by consulting the following article by past AATF president, Margot M. Steinhart: Picpus Cemetery and the Rothschild Hospital; Using the Archives to Support National Standards for Students of French