Izieu

Izieu
Izieu
Location within Rhône-Alpes region Izieu
Coordinates:
Country	France
Region	Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Department	Ain
Arrondissement	Belley
Canton	Belley
Intercommunality	Rhône et Gland dite Terre d’eaux
Government
• Mayor (2008–2014)	Jean-Philippe Gardat
Area1	7.67 km2 (2.96 sq mi)
Population (2008)2	196
• Density	26/km2 (66/sq mi)
INSEE/Postal code	01193 / 01300
Elevation	211–758 m (692–2,487 ft) (avg. 350 m or 1,150 ft)
1 French Land Register data, which excludes lakes, ponds, glaciers > 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) and river estuaries. 2 Population without double counting: residents of multiple communes (e.g., students and military personnel) only counted once.

Izieu is a commune in the Ain department in eastern France.

It lies on the Rhône River between the cities of Lyon and Chambéry.

History

Izieu was the site of a Jewish orphanage during the Second World War. Most of the children were however only separated from their parents or sent purposely in the Savoy mountains which was then under Italian rule. Italy was less oppressive in that time. On 6 April 1944, three vehicles pulled up in front of the orphanage. The Gestapo, under the direction of the 'Butcher of Lyon' Klaus Barbie, entered the orphanage and forcibly removed the forty-four children and their seven supervisors, throwing the crying and terrified children on to the trucks.

As a witness later recalled: 'I was on my way down the stairs when my sister shouted to me: It's the Germans, run away! I jumped out the window. I hid myself in a bush in the garden. I heard the cries of the children that were being kidnapped and I heard the shouts of the Nazis who were carrying them away.'

Following the raid on their home in Izieu, the children were shipped directly to the "collection center" in Drancy, then put on the first available train towards the concentration camps in the East.

Forty-two children and five adults were gassed in the concentration camp of Auschwitz. Two of the oldest children and Miron Zlatin, the superintendent, ended up in Tallinn, Estonia, and were killed by a firing squad.

The orphanage director Sabine Zlatin survived the Gestapo raid, being away collecting funds for the institution. Some 40 years later she testified against Barbie at his trial. Towards the end of her life, she convinced the president François Mitterrand to turn the orphanage premises into a memorial.

Population

Historical population
Year	Pop.	±%
1793	305	—
1800	305	+0.0%
1806	334	+9.5%
1821	304	−9.0%
1831	325	+6.9%
1836	309	−4.9%
1841	338	+9.4%
1846	331	−2.1%
1851	335	+1.2%
1856	319	−4.8%
1861	326	+2.2%
1866	316	−3.1%
1872	326	+3.2%
1876	327	+0.3%
1881	340	+4.0%
1886	334	−1.8%
1891	332	−0.6%
1896	307	−7.5%
1901	269	−12.4%
1906	250	−7.1%
1911	262	+4.8%
1921	217	−17.2%
1926	207	−4.6%
1931	185	−10.6%
1936	174	−5.9%
1946	147	−15.5%
1954	145	−1.4%
1962	113	−22.1%
1968	103	−8.8%
1975	141	+36.9%
1982	136	−3.5%
1990	161	+18.4%
1999	178	+10.6%
2008	196	+10.1%

See also

• Communes of the Ain department

References

• INSEE

External links

• Official Website of Holocaust Memorial Maison d'Izieu
• The Children Of Izieu