Asile de Nuit, Asile de Jour et Créche Israelites

The history of the Asile de Nuit, Asile de Jour et Créche Israelites (Jewish night asylum, day asylum and day nursery) dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, when forty philanthropists founded the Jewish Asylum-Philanthropic Society in Paris to assist Jewish refugees fleeing pogroms in Osteuropa. In the 1930s, the Asile de Nuit, Asile de Jour et Créche Israelites once again became a destination for German-Jewish refugees in particular, who escaped Nazi persecution to Paris and were largely dependent on support. In this original footage the different activities of the Asile were documented.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, Jews increasingly migrated from Eastern Europe to France, among other places, to escape economic hardship and pogroms. As a result, the Jewish Asylum-Philanthropic Society was founded in Paris in 1900.

The premises of the Jewish Asylum were initially located at 15 Rue du Figuier in the Marais district, the Pletzl (the small square in Yiddish). In 1910, a night asylum was then built in the 18th arrondissement (42 rue des Saules). The film documents the accommodation in the Rue de Chevalier de Barre in the Montmartre district. The asylum’s activities included counseling and accommodation, food distribution and educational services, and childcare. The asylum is a good example of how infrastructures for refugees is reused and refugee relief work builds on each other transhistorically.

March of Time – outtakes – Jewish Refugees in Paris

Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Public Domain

Reworked and edited by Miriam Schulz