It is a few meters from the square of Perrache station in Lyon (Rhône), from where the trains carrying 6,100 Jews bound for Drancy and the death camps in Poland departed, that the Holocaust memorial will be erected. .
The monument, called “The Rails of Memory”, will see the light of day in 2025, Place Carnot.
Jean-Olivier Viout has supported this project for eighteen years.
“I’m not Jewish,” he clarifies straight away.
“We wanted a specific monument for the Shoah in Lyon and we absolutely wanted this project to be located in the city center,” says the man who was deputy prosecutor during the trial of Klaus Barbie in 1987 alongside the illustrious attorney general. Pierre Truche.
The Association for the construction of the Shoah memorial in Lyon has launched an international call for projects.
To his great surprise, Jean-Olivier Viout saw the proposals pour in: “We received 96 applications representing 23 countries.
We even had a Chinese project!
»
It was ultimately a Parisian architectural firm, the Blaising & Borchardt studio, which won the bid.
He imagined a memorial monument made up of 1,173 m of rails symbolizing the 1,173 km of railway tracks which separate the Lyon station from the entrance to the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
“It’s a strong, modern work,” says the former magistrate.
Five hundred thousand euros were invested in this project to which local authorities contributed significantly.
Jean-Olivier Viout hopes that the SNCF will also agree to participate: “We symbolically made a request to the SNCF to find out if it agreed to donate the 1,173 m of rails.
We don't have an official answer but I'm hopeful.
» The monument will be inaugurated on January 26, 2025 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp.