The project of this website was created for an undergraduate advanced French history and culture course entitled Paris under the German Occupation and its [Non-] Places of Memory. The French title is a play on the words lieu de memoire (place of memory) and un non-lieu (a dismissed case).

In the summer of 2021, a Price Lab cohort started the creation of the current website. The bookshelf design, inspired by the Otlet's Shelf Tumblr theme, encourages viewers to 'browse the shelves' and provides a space where the stories of individuals who vanished recovered their voices.