Bazar de la Charité

The Bazar de la Charité was opened in 1885 as a charity event in Paris erected a few years later at number 17 rue Jean -Goujon (8th Arrondissement ). He insisted until May 4, 1897, when it was destroyed by a fire disaster in which 129 people died.

Ladies sold on this charity bazaar of high society art objects, the redeemed good revenue because of the prominent sellers.

The market hall was a wooden barrack, beautifully decorated with a lot of effort. It was shown at a theater decorating a street of medieval Paris.

On the back wall of the bazaar a small film theater was grown, in which, by means of a Kinematographenapparates short film programs were presented.

This apparatus was the starting point of the fire disaster: The lighting of the film projector needed as a light source, a lime light, which worked with a Etherflamme. The slightly steaming, flammable liquid, to the nitrocellulose film in a basket under the film apparatus and continue the flammable theater decorations made ​​of cotton, dry wood, paper and varnish offered the flames ideal food.

In a few minutes the whole hut burned, and the heat of the fire was so high that no drawing near was possible from the outside. Only when the fire was extinguished, the bodies were recovered, which were disfigured in part so that their identification seemed almost impossible.

The horror associated with the disaster and the loss of many high personalities (among others Sophie in Bavaria, the younger sister of Elizabeth of Austria - Hungary) attracted condolences and donations from around the world to himself. A small memorial chapel was built on the site of the incident.

The American choreographer Clint Lutes has dedicated the catastrophic fire of the bazaar de la Charité its production "Get a Leg Up" - a contemporary dance piece for nine dancers (world premiere: January 7, 2010, Berlin ).