The Jardin des Rosiers – Joseph Migneret is a public garden in the Marais, accessed from 10 rue des Rosiers and connected to the urban block between Rue des Rosiers and Rue des Francs-Bourgeois. Its historical importance does not come only from the garden itself, but from its position within the Jewish Marais and from the name it carries.

Joseph Migneret and the children of the Marais

Joseph Migneret was a teacher at the École des Hospitalières-Saint-Gervais from 1920 and became its director in 1937. The school stood in a district where many Jewish families lived, especially in the streets around Rue des Rosiers, one of the central areas of the Pletzl. During the German occupation and the Vichy persecutions, the school was directly marked by the Shoah. The Ville de Paris records that 165 children from the school were deported. After the great roundups of Jews in Paris in July 1942, Migneret helped Jewish pupils whose parents had been deported or who were themselves threatened with arrest.

Rescue, false papers and recognition

Migneret acted at great personal risk. Sources from Yad Vashem and the Musée de la Résistance record that he sheltered children, helped provide false papers and assisted former pupils trying to escape deportation.

Among the documented cases are Sarah Traube, who hid for nearly two years with his help, and students such as Adolphe Korman and René Szpindel, who later testified about the false papers Migneret helped obtain. He also tried to help Joseph Schulman, a young Jewish deportee who had been severely wounded after jumping from a transport.

On 28 March 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Joseph Migneret as Righteous Among the Nations. His memory is also preserved by a plaque at the former school, placed by grateful former pupils.

Jardin des Rosiers – Joseph Migneret

The public garden was created in stages. The first section opened in July 2007 behind the Hôtel de Coulanges. A second section, behind the Hôtel d’Albret and accessible from Rue des Rosiers, followed as part of the wider transformation of the block.

In 2014, the garden received the name Jardin des Rosiers – Joseph Migneret by decision of the Paris municipal authorities. Today, the name connects a quiet public space with the memory of Jewish childhood, deportation and rescue in the Marais.