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The museum About the museum
Jean-Marie Girault (1926-2016) was the Museum’s founder.
On June 6, 1944, a young Red Cross volunteer was searching through
the ruins of Caen to rescue the wounded buried under the rubble. In the 1980s, Jean-Marie Girault, now a senator and mayor of the city, was the driving force behind the Caen Memorial Museum. In 1981, he founded, along with others, the Association des Amis du Musée Mémorial, which began the important work of assembling memories and laying
the foundations for the future museum. Building work began in 1986, under the direction of Caen architect Jacques Millet, and the Memorial was opened on June 6, 1988, by President François Mitterrand. On its white Caen-stone façade, etched by the scars of wars, are lines by local poet Paul Dorey : La douleur m’a brisée, la fraternité m’a relevée, de ma blessure a jailli un fl euve de liberté (“Pain broke me, fraternity
relieved me, from my wound sprang a river of freedom”).
Status: SAEML (local public-private company)
Majority shareholder: City of Caen (51.6%)
Capital: €1,233,027
Chairman: Aristide Olivier, mayor of Caen
Chief Executive Officer: Kléber Arhoul
Number of employees (all sites): between 90 and 100 in a normal year
Museum surface area: 14,000 m² on 3 levels, including 5,600 m² of permanent exhibitions
SIREN 348 713 694 | VAT FR 71348713694 | APE 9102Z
4,6
20 710 avis
Having a small group to tour with, is so much better than a large bus. Our guide Oliver was a native English speaker and very knowledgeable about history of the region and World War II. Because our group already had a base knowledge of World War II he quickly adapted and tailored the tour so we get the best experience. Lunch was included and delicious!
This was a fantastic tour! The memorial museum was excellent, the movie of the landing very impactful. We could enter the museum whenever we wanted before the van tour so we had lots of time to look around at our own pace. The visit to Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery was great, moving, enlightening. Our guide was Mario – he was wonderful!!! Extremely knowledgeable, has a great sense of humor and excellent English, can’t recommend him enough! He gave us so much information and answered all our questions – some of us had been to the sites before and we still learned so much more from him. I highly recommend this tour if you only have one day to see the most important US sites of the WWII landings.
As an American wanting to see the American memorial war site as a family, we were pleased to find the tour guide 100% knowledgeable and almost every question we had. Questions were needing to be answered with lack of info prior to the tour, beginning solely based on inability to figure out where to park and meet. Anna, is by far the best tour guide this company has and I would recommend her 2 million times over as well as the driver she worked with. The wealth of knowledge she had, the patients she showed, but the ability to adapt to every individual tourist and her having the ability to professionally handle multiple tourists conversations at the same time and adapting with a New York old woman who could not stop speaking as well as young children at the age of ten, The tour guide guides had every thing that could have been asked, anticipated and ready to be taken care of at the drop of a hat. Flawless, beautiful tour along with a perfect day in Normandy. Always ask FOR ANNA!!!!
Anna our guide was wonderful and did an excellent job explaining the historical background, planning , decisions and difficulties of the d-day invasion. The d-day beaches, the landing sites on June 6, 1944, and the American cemetery are part of American history, it was very meaningful to visit. Peter our driver was terrific too, I would highly recommend this trip.
Mémorial de Caen
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