Among these soldiers are buried the remains of two generals. Those of General Dame, commander of the 2nd North African Infantry Division (DINA) who died for France on 18th July 1940 during his captivity in the fortress of Königstein and those of General Mesny, commander of the 5th DINA. This general officer was executed on 19th January 1945 in retaliation for the death of the German General von Brodowsky on 28th October 1944.

178 graves also preserve the memory of Soviet prisoners of war or civilians arrested on the Eastern Front and deported to France to work in the mines or in the construction of the Atlantic Wall. Some antifascist Russian immigrants are also buried there.

The war cemetery also contains 21 graves of Russian soldiers who died during the First World War.

In 1915, the German army established, to the left of the communal cemetery, a military cemetery for burying the soldiers who died in combat or in the field hospitals. It contains 1,627 bodies, including 631 in a mass grave.

The Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp was mainly used for the internment of resistance fighters from across Europe, but homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses were also interned here. The camp’s interns were made to do gruelling forced labour for the economy of the Third Reich. A number of those deported for racial reasons (Jews and Gypsies) were also sent here, to be subjected to horrific pseudo-scientific experiments.

Today, this listed historic site offers the chance to discover the workings of the only concentration camp in France, with its huts, crematorium and gas chamber.

Opened in 2005, the Centre Européen du Résistant Déporté has a definite educational approach to its visits. Touchscreen terminals, films, objects and photos chart the rise of fascism and Nazism in Europe and the setting up of the Nazi concentration camp network, whi

le at the same time paying tribute to the resistance movements that rose up against oppression.

A meeting place and discussion forum, the Centre holds regular temporary exhibitions and conferences. It aspires to spread the values of freedom, respect, tolerance and vigilance.
The camp, a major site for national and European remembrance, comes under the responsibility of the National Office for Veterans and Victims of War, an executive agency of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces.

Sources: ©Site de l’ancien camp de concentration de Natzweiler-Struthof - Centre européen du résistant déporté

 Following the old First World War front line, the Musée Territoire 14-18 sheds light on a great many aspects of a conflict that left a lasting impression on the local landscape and population.

Here you can visit a number of museums (Musée de la Batellerie, Musée du Noyonnais); an interpretation centre (Espace Découverte in Rethondes), which will prepare you for your visit to the battleground by using modern technology to present the main stages of the conflict in the area; several quarries (Confrécourt, Montigny); a large number of cemeteries, monuments and remains (various French cemeteries; two German cemeteries, including the biggest in the Oise; a number of bunkers, including that of the Crown Prince of Bavaria, at Nampcel; the ruins of Plessier-de-Roye and Ourscamp abbey); follow our hiking trails, and immerse yourself in the everyday lives of civilians and soldiers a hundred years ago.

 In late August 1914, the German 1st Army invaded the Oise and the Soisson area. It passed Compiègne and Senlis, then went on down the eastern side of Paris to participate in surrounding the French troops. But the French, aided by the British, halted the invaders at the Battle of the Marne (5 to 10 September 1914). The Germans then retreated, stopping on the right bank of the Aisne. From 14 to 20 September 1914, the very violent fighting that took place across the Noyon and Soisson areas brought little change. While the belligerents tried to break the deadlock by attempting to outflank each other to the northwest of Noyon (the start of the ‘Race to the Sea’), the front became established in the area for 30 months, along a line that passed through Roye, Lassigny, Ribécourt, Autrêches and Soissons. The inhabitants of the towns and villages near the front line were evacuated, while the Germans occupied Noyon and the northeast of the department of the Oise. Following the German retreat over the Hindenburg Line in March 1917, the Oise was liberated a first time. But although life tended to return to normal with the return of the civilians, the German offensives of spring 1918 prolonged the fighting in the area until the end of August 1918. The various battles waged during this period transformed towns and villages, which up until then had been spared, into “flattened country”.

The clearing in Rethondes nevertheless became the symbol of peace regained, with the signing of the Armistice on 11 November 1918.

Sources : ©Musée Territoire 14-18

Fondé en 1988 à l’initiative d’anciens résistants et passé sous gestion du Département du Loiret en 2008, le Musée se compose de deux bâtiments de plain–pied, pleinement accessibles à tous les publics. Le premier se consacre aux espaces d’exposition permanente, tandis que le second accueille conférences, expositions temporaires et ateliers pédagogiques. Une salle de consultation des archives et de la bibliothèque du Musée est également accessible sur demande. Attenant au Musée, un paisible jardin propose au visiteur un espace mémoriel en hommage aux résistants–déportés du Loiret.

Now the property of the Communication and Audiovisual Production Company for the Department of Defence (E.C.P.A.D), the fort at Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne), constructed between 1841 and 1845, was modified after the war of 1870 in order to defend Paris. It is part of the first line in Séré de Rivières' system.

Constructed between 1841 and 1845, the fort was equipped in 1870 with 94 artillery pieces and commanded by Sea Captain Krantz. It was defended by a marine battalion that had come from Brest. On the 29th and 30th November, the fort supported the attacks from the outposts of the 6th Prussian corps to the north of Choisy-le-Roi, Thiais and Chevilly-la-Rue. On the 30th these three villages received 5,500 shells in a single day. The besieging troops owe their salvation to the numerous trenches. The French abandoned the captured positions on the evening of the 30th. The fort was occupied by the 6th Prussian corps from the 29th January until the 20th March 1871. A battery of 21 cm mortars was brought into the gorge to fire on the central section and batteries of 15 cm cannons to bombard Paris in the event that fighting should start again. The townspeople occupied the fort after the departure of the Prussians, with Colonel Rogowski in command of the confederate garrison. Faced with the threat of an attack by troops from the 3rd Versailles corps, the Confederates evacuated the fort during the night of the 24th to 25th May, blowing up a munitions depot and destroying nine of the casemates between the 3rd and 4th sides.
The fort is a pentagon with 5 bastions. It is built on underground galleries; only one of the bastions is not entrenched in the foundation piers. The galleries (more than 2 km) were planned out between 1852 and 1860 to keep watch over these piers and serve as shelters from bombardments (the ceilings of these galleries are 6 m thick). During the works, 2 battalions from the 65th Line Regiment were used, housed in an army camp close to the fort. The dominant position of the fort is clearly visible from the crossroads to the north of the entrance. The entrance accommodates two guardhouses in five vaulted casemates. There are also three postern gates, of which 2 are next to the latrines, along the other sides. The ramparts and bastions are bridged by about fifty cross sections, including 28 with vaulted shelters. The rampart between bastions 3 and 4 protects 18 casemates; one of them had a bread oven. The flanks adjacent to the bastions have gun casements for the infantry. The four other ramparts have a scarp with protected walkway for the infantry. The parade ground is surrounded by a large barracks for the troops and two houses for officers. These buildings were rebuilt in 1872. The 2 gunpowder magazines have an internal surface area of 142 m2. The fort is served by 3 wells. The building is faced in millstone, with cut stone for the stays and window and door surrounds. The buildings have tiled or zinc roofs. The arches of the casemates and magazines are in stone. The ditches between bastions 1, 2, 3 and 4 are still preserved. To the west, a police barracks occupies the place of the ditches. On the glacis there are now gardens, a college, a school, some houses and other buildings. Access is still via a casemate guardhouse. The rampart has kept its cross sections and casemates, although the latter have been converted into offices. The three barracks rebuilt after 1872 have been redeveloped, along with the two gunpowder magazines dating from 1847.
The premises now house the Communication and Audiovisual Production Company for the Department of Defence (E.C.P.A.D). They store the audio-visual archives of the military history of France from 1900 to the modern day, through 16,800 films and videos and more than 3.5 million de photographs. The first world war collection collates all the pictures and films made by the Armed Forces Photographic and Cinematographic Division (SPCA) from 1915, the date it was established, to 1919 when it was suspended. This collection is made up of images directly linked to: fighting and its aftermath: the French front and the Eastern front, the lives of poilus (a slang term fro a French soldier), the army medical corps, prisoners and what remains of the battlefields; images of the economic effort of the country and its colonies; images of political and diplomatic life: official visits of heads of state or foreign delegations, the Treaty of Versailles etc. pictures and works of art, monuments and museums and photographs taken in anticipation of reconstruction. The second world war collection collates all the documents issued by the various forces represented: the phony war documents the life of the French armies in the countryside, from the North Sea to the Italian border, between the declaration of war and the start of the French campaign; Vichy is concerned with the actions of the government and the Armistice Army, mainly in the free zone in North Africa before the allied landings; The Liberating Army follows the main fighting that took place from North Africa to Europe, from Algiers in November 1942 until the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945.
The German collection is especially large, due to the great number of operational theatres illustrated along the eastern front and through the diversity in the subjects covered in the military field (scenes of fighting and training, the lives of units on the front, the repression of people in the east and the manufacture of weapons) and in everyday life. Managed by the Armed Forces Cinematographic Division (SCA) which was united after the war, the Indochina war collection groups together Tonkin, Annam, Cochinchina, Cambodia and Laos. Although military documentaries, most of which were about the land army, represent the main subject of this collection, there are also documents describing the way of life, habitat and special customs of the various ethnic groups. Many documents belonging to this collection illustrate French action in the colonies: keeping order, industrial and agricultural development, the construction of schools, housing and clinics and the establishment of administrative frameworks. They demonstrate approval of French presence in Indochina and Algeria. The external operations collection. Protecting France's fundamental interests can lead to the intervention of the armed forces outside their national territory. That is why we talk about external operations, carried out within the framework of international mandates, such as NATO and the UN. The main external operations covered by the ECPAD since 1945 are the Korean war (1952-1953), the Lebanon (1978-1984), Chad (1978-1987), Cambodia (1991-1993), the Gulf War (1991), Bosnia-Herzegovina (since 1992), Rwanda (1994), Kosovo and Macedonia (since 1998), the Ivory Coast and Afghanistan (since 2001).
Fort at Ivry-sur-Seine 2-8 route du Fort 94205 Ivry-sur-Seine Remembrance tourist information Mairie d'Ivry Esplanade Georges Marrane 94205 Ivry-sur-Seine cedex Tel.: 0149.60.25.08 Communication and Audiovisual Production Company for the Department of Defence (ECPAD) Tel: 01.49.60.52.00 Fax: 01.49.60.52.06 e-mail: ecpad@ecpad.fr or mediatheque@ecpad.fr

The museum tour will explain to visitors all about:

• The first royal troops created by Richelieu in 1622 intended for shipborne battle.

• The first modern sailors.

• The marines from the great war and the Ronarc'h brigade to the landing companies of the eastern front.

• The first commandos formed in England.

• The marine regiments of the Second World War.

• The engagement of the land and waterway units of the navy during the Indochina War.

• The commando and sailor operations of the AFN.

• The history of the navy school

• The navy today.

Autres informations

Site Web

Contact: musee.fusco@orange.fr

Base fusiliers marins
BP 92 222
56998 Lorient CEDEX

Sources: Website /http://musee.fusco.lorient.free.fr

Webmaster: musee.fusco@orange.fr

Cité de la Muette was a collective housing unit built in the 1930s but was never completed. In 1941 it became an internment camp and then, in 1942 a camp to group together Jews of France before deporting them to the extermination camps. Between March 1942 and August 1944, around 63,000 of the 76,000 Jews deported from France passed through Drancy. Cité de la Muette was inhabited again as of 1948 and has gradually become a memorial for Drancy: commemorative plaques, erection of a memorial monument, buildings listed as historical monuments since 2001. 

A place of history and education open to everybody, the Drancy Shoah Memorial covers an area of 2,500 m² on five levels. It has a permanent exhibition on the camp's history, several educational rooms, a documentation centre and a conference room. With its large windows facing Cité de la Muette, the dialogue between the two is constant. Just after entering, visitors can see on the wall the faces of 12,000 Jews who were interned at Drancy between 1941 and 1944.

The permanent exhibition uses video testimonials, archive documents and photographs from the period to tell the history of the Drancy camp and the daily life of those interned here from 1941 to 1944, the organisation of the deportations from 1942, and the construction of the camp's memory after the war. Ten documentaries by Patrick Rotman are broadcast. In the middle of the exhibition, the House of Children, designed by Delphine Gleize, allows visitors to learn the fate of children who were interned and deported.

A number of educational activities are possible. For school children there are educational workshops, memory trails, general and themed visits and dedicated areas. In the documentation centre, scanned publications, photographs, films and archives on the history of Drancy can be viewed. School children and the general public can carry out research on the camp and on the people to whom this site is dedicated. A number of testimonials will be collected from the population of Drancy in connection with local associations to improve the collections.

The Drancy Shoah Memorial is complementary to the Paris Shoah Memorial. It is a place of mediation between the site of the former camp and the public, a place of history and transmission. It will allow school children and the general public to be better informed of the history of Cité de la Muette and particularly the central role of the Drancy camp in excluding French Jews in the Second World War and in the implementation of the "Final solution" by the Nazis in France, with collaboration from the Vichy government.

Drancy Shoah Memorial - 110-112, avenue Jean-Jaurès - 93700 Drancy
Tel.: +33 (0)1 77 48 78 20 – Email: contact@memorialdelashoah.org

www.memorialdelashoah.org

Article by the Memorial on the inauguration
 

Reception for groups and school parties:
Tel.: +33 (0)1 53 01 18 01 – Email: education@memorialdelashoah.org

Getting there:

Public transport - RER B to "Le Bourget"
then bus 143 to "Square de la Libération".
Bus 143 and 703, stop at "Square de la Libération"
Bus 151, 251, 684 and 551, stop at "Place du 19 mars 1962"

By car - Market car park.

Autolib terminal: 105, avenue Jean-Jaurès

Paris-Drancy shuttle:
Every Sunday until 31 March 2013 (inclusive).
2pm: leave from Mémorial de la Shoah (17 rue Geoffroy-l’Asnier, 75004 Paris)
arrive at Mémorial de Drancy at 2.45/3pm
5pm: bus returns to Mémorial de Paris
 

Opened in 2012, the Mayenne Deportees Memorial is a visitors’ site that pays tribute to the people of Mayenne who were deported to the Nazi concentration and extermination camps during the Second World War.

This remembrance site is also a learning centre and a place of artistic expression and sharing.

The Memorial consists of two complementary spaces:

the Remembrance Area and the Vigilance Area. Objects collected from the camps, exhibitions, timelines, a wall of names, and written and oral accounts of deportees are presented in a unique and accessible setting.

Through the Memorial, the organisation that manages the site hopes to raise the awareness of present and future generations about the values of tolerance and respect, human rights and fighting all forms of discrimination.

The Memorial’s permanent exhibition, “Souffrances et Espoirs” (Suffering and Hope), takes its title from the eponymous book by Mayenne deportee Marcel Le Roy.  The exhibition is split into three parts: “Before arrest”, “In the camp” and “Freedom and hope”.

First-hand accounts, extracts from deportees’ memoirs and photographs will take you down the long road to the hell of the camps. A tribute is also paid to the Righteous Among the Nations, who put their lives in danger to hide Jews.  The last part of the exhibition looks at Europe and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This part is the link with the Vigilance Area, which seeks to raise people’s awareness about current events.

Maps and timelines explain the context of the period and provide an introduction to the visit.

The Association pour le Mémorial de la Déportation organises a variety of activities (conferences, temporary exhibitions, readings, etc.) throughout the year.

Source : ©Mémorial des Déportés de la Mayenne

From the summer of 1943 to the summer of 1944, the Bobigny train station, a vast area including a freight station and a passenger station in the outer ring of Parisian suburbs, became the centre for deporting the Jews held at the Drancy concentration camp, located a little over 2 km away. For this it replaced the Le Bourget station which, starting in March 1942, had been used as the main deportation centre for French Jews.

After World War II, this 3.5-hectare site was used for industrial purposes by a scrap metal dealer who moved in 2005. This place of remembrance, listed on the supplementary Historical Monuments inventory, is the only example in France of a deportation train station that was abandoned and preserved in a condition close to its original layout. It is therefore a unique site.

Registration on the Seine-Saint Denis Tourist Office website:

Bobigny Tourist Office – Tel.: +33 (0)1 48 30 83 29 - E-mail address: otsi@ville-bobigny.fr

School and group visits (by appointment):

Tél : 01 41 60 99 91 - Adresse mail : anne.bourgon@ville-bobigny.fr

AERI has been working for more than ten years to produce CD-ROMs (or DVD-ROMs) on the local Resistance.
It has set up a dynamic network of several hundred people throughout France (teachers, resistance fighters, archivists, historians, students, academics, curators, representatives of local authorities and associations, etc.); acquiring know-how using a methodology for working in a network through a website and skills available to the teams (jurists, cartographers, foreign researchers, etc.); gathering a considerable documentary collection of more than 30,000 documents (posters, tracts, letters, newspapers, photos, audio documents or film archives, etc.), 25,000 historical records (thematic, bibliographical), 50,000 names, 19,000 events, and more than 6,000 places referenced, 20,000 archive and bibliographical references.

This was the source of the idea to create a reference portal site in cooperation with many partners (foundations, ministries, local authorities, museums, archive centres, associations, research centres, etc.) on the period: the on-line Museum of the Resistance (1940-1945). The computer tools used demonstrate the Internet’s contribution in terms of presentation and analysis of documents as well as their educational use.

Thanks to the Internet tool and the related technologies, the on-line Museum of the Resistance has become a site for the general public that is visible because it has a domestic and international dimension, showcasing digital cultural content bringing together resources, diffusing information and guiding the visitor to the appropriate contact.

Since January 2012, the “AERI department” has been pursuing its missions within the Fondation de la Résistance.

The on-line Museum of the Resistance has been open to the public since January 2011, with:

Regional exhibitions: an exhibition on the Drôme has been on line since January 2011.

A provisional exhibition on the Resistance in PACA was posted on line in December 2011.
The definitive exhibition will be ready at the end of 2012 or at the beginning of 2013. For the Ile-de-France region, work is underway on places of remembrance with a smartphone application.

An exhibition of photos and documents on the clandestine newspaper “Défense de la France” was posted on line in February 2012.

A virtual exhibit on the Libération Nord Resistance movement is being prepared with the “Musée du Général Leclerc de Hauteclocque et de la Libération de Paris-Musée Jean Moulin”.
Work is underway on other exhibitions: the Resistance in the Jura, Ardèche, etc.

Thematic exhibitions: an exhibit of gouaches by Albert Fié (resistance fighter from the Drôme département) presented since January 2011, an exhibit on Serge Ravanel, a struggle for unity since August 2011 and the Eysses, a prison in resistance (1943-1944) exhibit since January 2012; a chapter on the itinerary of resistants from Eysses will be added in 2012. A provisional exhibition on the Jewish Resistance Organisations will be put on line in 2012. An exhibition is being prepared on the history of the Vercors (2014), Resistance insignia and armbands (2013), etc.

Beyond the “Exhibitions” spaces, the virtual museum has a media centre, “media base”, where all the documents exhibited in the virtual museum are listed. Educational workshops for teachers and their students are proposed in the form of a blog. They can work on topics related to the exhibitions, school programmes and the “Concours national de la Résistance et de la Déportation”.

http://www.museedelaresistanceenligne.org/

AERI - 16-18 Place Dupleix - 75015 Paris – Tel.: +33 (0)1 45 66 62 72 - Fax: +33 (0)1 45 67 64 24

E-mail : musee@aeri-resistance.com