Great Synagogue of Bordeaux
Romanesque-Byzantine sanctuary with ironwork by Gustave Eiffel, once a wartime detention site.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Great Synagogue of Bordeaux follows the building from its 1882 construction, with ironwork by Gustave Eiffel, through its wartime pillaging by the Nazis, who tore out its ark and chandelier and even a memorial plaque to the city's Jewish war dead. It centers on the night of January 10, 1944, when French police locked hundreds of rounded-up families inside before deportation, and on a six-year-old among them, Boris Cyrulnik, who slipped away and later became one of France's best-known psychiatrists. Look for the names cut into the wall outside, and for what a room built for prayer was made to hold instead.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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