Living History Museum in Montreuil

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Based in Montreuil, the Living History Museum (Musee de l'Histoire Vivante) promotes social, working-class and popular history. Founded in 1939 by elected Communist representatives in the spirit of the Front Populaire, the museum and its collections are an important place of memory in the “red suburbs”.

The museum holds major items relating to the Second World War and, in particular, the Communist Resistance: memorial objects such as the “Châteaubriant plates”, a large number of photographs, posters, clandestine prints and prison diaries, and paintings: a scene from the Liberation of Paris by Lilly Steiner and The Death of Danièle Casanova by Boris Taslitzky (1949).

The museum stands out not only for its associative nature and its “bottom-up” approach to history, but also for its function as an archive center. It holds the archives of the PCF underground secretariat and of resistance fighters such as Joseph Billiet, Daniel Renoult, Jacques Duclos, Louis Odru, Paul Vienney - or Marie-Thérèse Douet, who kept a notebook recounting her experience of the Liberation of Paris.

The museum's programming focuses on the contemporary period, with the Second World War regularly featured in its temporary exhibitions, events and cultural and educational activities. Throughout the year, the museum offers a documentary workshop on “Women in Resistance”, and is open to supporting projects on this period.

Useful information

Address

Parc Montreau
31 boulevard Théophile Sueur
93100 Montreuil

Opening hours

Exhibitions reopen in October 2025

Wednesday / Thursday / Friday - 2pm to 5pm
Saturday and Sunday - 2pm to 6pm

Contacts

mushistviv@gmail.com
+33 (0)1 48 54 32 44

MORE INFORMATION

 
 

Events

 
 
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June 26, 2025 to November 9, 2026

Auschwitz-Birkenau seen by Raymond Depardon

Location: Mémorial de la Shoah à Paris

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September 18, 2025 to January 23, 2026

Déportés. Their ultimate transmission

Location: Bobigny deportation station memorial

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From April 9, 2025 to January 12, 2026

Bleu / Nuit. Art after the camps. Exhibition by Shelomo Selinger

Location: The Shoah Memorial in Drancy

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Until November 16, 2025

How the Nazis photographed their crimes. Auschwitz 1944

Location: The Shoah Memorial in Paris

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Saturday, September 20, 2025 and Sunday, September 21, 2025

Heritage Days, Bobigny deportation station

Location: Bobigny deportation station memorial

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Tuesday, May 27 and Friday, June 13, 2025

Events at the Bobigny Deportation Station Memorial

Location: Bobigny deportation station memorial

 
 

Places worth visiting in Seine-Saint-Denis

Air and Space Museum at Le Bourget

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Living History Museum in Montreuil

Based in Montreuil, the Living History Museum (Musee de l'Histoire Vivante) promotes social, working-class and popular history.

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The Shoah Memorial in Drancy

Inaugurated in September 2012 in the presence of President François Hollande, the Drancy Shoah Memorial is a place of remembrance and a museum that complements the Shoah Memorial in Paris.

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National Memorial to Women in Resistance and Deportation

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Bobigny's former deportation station

Since its inauguration in July 2023, the Bobigny's former deportation station has put transmission at the heart of its project and actions.

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Quai aux Bestiaux Memorial in Pantin

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Historical sites in Seine-Saint-Denis

Drancy internment camp

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Gare du Bourget-Drancy

Main train station for the deportation of Jews from France to Auschwitz-Birkenau between March 1942 and June 1943. A total of 40,450 were deported from this station.

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Gare de Bobigny

From July 1943 until the summer of 1944, the main departure point for the deportation of Jews from France. A total of 22,500 were deported from this train station.

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Camp du fort de Romainville

Requisitioned by the German occupying forces in 1940, it was transformed into an internment and transit camp for resistance fighters and victims of repression.

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Quai aux bestiaux

In 1944, it was the departure point for 4 deportation convoys linked to the policy of repression, including the last convoy to leave France on August 15, 1944. In all, 3,250 people were deported from this quay.

 

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Le Bourget airport

A strategic point throughout World War II, it was bombed by both sides. It was used to repatriate prisoners and deportees in the spring of 1945.

 

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Camp de la caserne des Suisses

Used during the war as a camp for foreign nationals “from the enemy powers of the Reich”. More than 2,000 men were interned here during the German occupation.

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Further afield

Museums and memorial sites to visit beyond Seine-Saint-Denis to better understand the history of the Resistance and the Holocaust in France.

See the list of sites