A Painful Mission for France: A Museum on the Ravages of Terrorism

PARIS — No different nation in Western Europe has suffered as a lot from terrorism as France over the previous decade. With greater than 50 assaults which have killed almost 300 individuals — together with dozens of kids and youngsters — the nation has borne the brunt of among the worst assaults in Europe.

Now, France plans to memorialize this collective struggling with a brand new museum that may hint the event of terrorism over the ages, together with the assaults on the workplaces of the satirical journal Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan live performance corridor in Paris which have deeply shaken the nation in recent times.

The transfer is a daring one on condition that the nation continues to be grappling with the trauma of those assaults, with victims whose bodily and psychological wounds are nonetheless uncooked. Solely final fall, there have been a sequence of latest assaults, together with the beheading of Samuel Paty, a historical past trainer who confirmed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a category on free speech.

Along with the demise toll, almost 1,000 individuals have been wounded in assaults since 2012.

However the planners of the undertaking say the museum is required to assist the individuals of France to confront and perceive a scourge that they are going to be dwelling with for a while.

“The actual fact that we’re making a memorial museum whereas the phenomenon of terrorism has no likelihood of vanishing within the years to return is a means of exhibiting our capability to take a step again,” Henry Rousso, a French historian who’s overseeing the undertaking, mentioned in an interview.

“It’s a type of resistance via tradition, data, intelligence and the transmission of experiences,” mentioned Mr. Rousso, who additionally helped create the Caen Memorial Museum, which marks the Normandy landings of World Struggle II, and the Shoah Memorial in Paris, commemorating victims of the Holocaust.

President Emmanuel Macron of France pledged in September 2018 to create a memorial museum to put the victims of terrorist assaults “on the coronary heart of our recollections.” The brand new museum is anticipated to be inaugurated within the Paris space by 2027, and can goal to indicate how France and different terrorism-affected nations have reacted to assaults over the previous 50 years, with a specific emphasis on the resilience of their individuals.

Mr. Rousso mentioned the perpetrators of the assaults would even be featured within the museum. Responding to questions he has confronted about whether or not the museum would unintentionally glorify them, he mentioned it was necessary to signify them as nicely.

“It’s a historical past museum,” he mentioned. “After we do one on Nazism, we’ve to say Himmler and Hitler.”

Gérôme Truc, a sociologist on the French Nationwide Heart for Scientific Analysis who helps create the museum, referred to as worries about glorifying perpetrators a “purple herring.”

Mr. Rousso and Mr. Truc mentioned they had been delicate about how terrorists could be introduced within the museum, noting that depictions may concentrate on them carrying handcuffs in court docket as a substitute of posing with weapons.

Christophe Naudin, a historical past trainer who was on the Bataclan on Nov. 13, 2015, when gunmen burst in and murdered 90 individuals — a complete of 131 had been killed that day in terrorist assaults throughout Paris — mentioned he was in favor of mentioning the names of assailants within the new museum, however with warning.

“I do know some victims refuse to say or see them,” mentioned Mr. Naudin, who wrote a ebook about his expertise. “I want to keep away from seeing their photos. I do know numerous victims wouldn’t be capable to deal with it.”

Final fall, France was struck by a string of lethal terrorist assaults that got here similtaneously the trial of 14 individuals who aided the Charlie Hebdo assault in 2015, wherein a dozen individuals working for the satirical journal had been slaughtered. Along with the beheading of Mr. Paty in October, three individuals had been killed at a church in Good that month.

Mr. Rousso mentioned that in contrast to the 9/11 memorial in New York, the French memorial museum wouldn’t be devoted to a specific assault. It’s going to function exhibitions, conferences and movies on assaults world wide, and a historic retrospective on terrorism in France, courting again to the plot concentrating on Napoléon Bonaparte, may also be a part of a everlasting exhibition.

The museum’s precise location is anticipated to be determined by subsequent spring.

A memorial for victims of terrorism has existed in Paris since 1998, within the gardens of Les Invalides, the place Napoléon is entombed — a fountain and bronze statue of a beheaded girl with darkish, empty eyes and her head in her fingers. However in contrast to the reflecting swimming pools that mark the 9/11 terror assaults in New York, the Paris memorial just isn’t broadly identified or visited, besides by officers commemorating France’s nationwide day of remembrance for terrorism victims on March 11.

“The nation doesn’t overlook,” Mr. Macron wrote on Twitter after laying a wreath on the statue at this 12 months’s commemoration.

The memorial was inaugurated at a time when France’s mind-set on terrorism was very totally different. Françoise Rudetzki, founding father of the primary victims affiliation, SOS Assaults, which commissioned the statue, mentioned that “again within the Nineteen Eighties, individuals had been taking a look at me in a humorous means, telling me that we are going to quickly be achieved with terrorism.”

Now, there may be broad acknowledgment that it’s right here to remain, mentioned Ms. Rudetzki, who can also be a member of the memorial museum advisory committee and was wounded in a terrorist bombing in 1983 that value her the usage of her legs.

The longer term memorial will record the names of victims of terrorism assaults in France and French victims of assaults overseas. It’s going to cowl a interval beginning in 1974, the 12 months that Carlos the Jackal carried out the bombing of a Paris drugstore and when France started granting “a medal of recognition” to victims of terrorist assaults, Mr. Rousso mentioned.

Impressed by memorial museums world wide, such because the 22 July Centre in Oslo, officers have began figuring out objects and paperwork that could possibly be showcased, comparable to textual content messages despatched by victims, sealed court docket information, and poems and drawings left at ephemeral memorials.

“Terrorism, whether or not we prefer it or not, is a part of our societies,” Mr. Rousso mentioned. “Making a museum just isn’t a solution to put the difficulty behind us. It’s a solution to make individuals perceive it.”