That is also why the idea of creating a European political deportation museum near Struthof seemed obvious.

8 December 1988: Bob Sheppard, president of the Amicale Nationale des Déportés et Familles de Disparus de Natzweiler-Struthof, writes to the Historical Commission of the ministry for veterans’ affairs about creating a museum at Struthof: “Because of its location and admirable site, Natzweiler, near Strasbourg, can be and must be a place where Europeans can meet each other and pay their respects… a veritable national and European museum should be built outside the camp with help from other nations whose citizens were also deported.”

6 February 1991: the Struthof Executive Board meets to discuss the future of the Struthof memorial. Two museums are proposed: one focusing specifically on Struthof, the other on the Deportation.

9 April 1991: the members of the Struthof Executive Board and the representative of the junior minister for veterans’ affairs choose a location for the future” “European deportation museum”: it will be built over the Kartoffelkeller, near the present camp site.

4 June 1992: Louis Mexandeau, junior minister for veterans’ affairs and war victims, writes to the chairmen of the International Nazi Concentration Camp Committees and heads of other organisations to present the French president’s intention of creating a deportation and Nazi concentration camp system centre at the Struthof site.

20 June 1992: the nine chairmen of the International Nazi Concentration Camp Committees and approximately 20 presidents and heads of Resistance and Deportation organisations meet at the Strasbourg Prefecture and at Struthof under the chairmanship of Roger Jouet, head of the Memory and Historic Information Office, representing Louis Mexandeau, junior minister for veterans’ affairs. They unanimously approve the project as well as a series of proposals involving the future centre’s goals and terminology. The plan is temporarily put on hold because of the concomitant multiplication of other projects involving the same period (international funding for the preservation of Auschwitz, work on a Deportation Museum in Paris, Royallieu-Compiègne museum project, etc.).

10 September 1995: for the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the camps, Prime Minister Alain Juppé attends the annual ceremony at Struthof. Executive board chairman Léon Boutbien talks to him about the idea of a European museum there. The project is on again, with the idea of at least partial European funding.

21 October 1997: Jean-Pierre Masseret, a member of parliament from the Lorraine region and junior minister for veterans’ affairs, announces the government’s commitment to the creation of a museum-memorial at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp.

• The project's genesis
• History of the project
• Inauguration, 3 November 2005
• The architect's point of view
• The graphic artist's intention
• The historical sources
• Acknowledgements
• 2010, the guardianship changement