(Permanently closed to the public on 1 July 2018, before moving to the restored Ledoux
buildings and an adjacent building, in Place Denfert-Rochereau, 14th arrondissement of Paris.)

After being housed for 24 years above Paris-Montparnasse railway station, the museum re-opened in new surroundings on the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris. Its new home was a heritage site. The new setting, more accessible and more visible, is steeped in the history of the period. Jean Moulin lived nearby.

During the Liberation of Paris, Colonel Rol-Tanguy, FFI commander for the Paris region, set up his command post in its basement, before General Leclerc crossed the square on entering Paris on 25 August 1944.

The website chantiermuseeliberation.paris.fr takes you behind the scenes of the future museum, to see its design, collections and the progress of the works.

 - Extract from the press pack -

Télécharger la plaquette

Click here to view the cemetery's information panel 

Creation of the cemetery

The National Cemetery of Fleury-devant-Douaumont contains the remains of French soldiers killed in the fighting that took place in the Verdun area from 1914 to 1918, and in particular the Battle of Verdun. Created in 1923, the cemetery was developed until 1936. Once the site had been chosen, in 1923, the War Graves Department, with the aid of the Metz engineers’ regiment, levelled a plot of land of several hectares, where major clearance work had been carried out to recover any abandoned hardware and hazardous munitions.

Once the land was level, the avenues and graves were laid. In August 1925, the bodies buried in small cemeteries around Verdun were transferred to the right half. In November, the cemetery received the exhumed bodies from the disused Fleury cemetery. In October 1926, it received those from the Fontaine de Tavannes cemetery. Over subsequent years, as bodies went on being discovered in the “red zone” – up to 500 per month – they were laid to rest here, over half of them identified. The cemetery also received the bodies from the cemetery of Bois Contant.
In accordance with the Law of 29 December 1915, which instituted a perpetual resting place for servicemen killed in action, the cemetery contains over 16 000 bodies in individual graves, and a Muslim plot containing 592 graves. Of the 1 781 Muslim graves laid in plots or rows in 16 cemeteries, the largest plots are to be found at Douaumont, with 592 graves, Bras with 254, and Dugny with 201. Each grave is marked with a Muslim gravestone, engraved with the words “Here lies” in Arabic, followed by the name of the deceased. There is also a special burial plot for unknown soldiers whose bodies were discovered recently. Six French soldiers killed in the Second World War are buried here.

Historical information

 The Battle of Verdun

Forty kilometres from the German border established in 1871, the village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont had a population of 422 in 1913. By September 1914, at the end of the First Battle of the Marne, the front line had reached the outskirts of Fleury and became entrenched to the north of the village. Located on the road between Verdun and Douaumont, at the heart of a major fortified position, in 1915 Fleury was naturally incorporated in the fortified area of Verdun, i.e. at the convergence between the two opposing armies.

On 21 February 1916, Operation Gericht, the brainchild of General Falkenhayn, was launched against the French positions. From February to December 1916, French and German troops fought one another in what was one of the most terrible battles of the Great War. From the outset of the offensive, the village came under severe bombardment, and was immediately evacuated. After the fall of Fort Douaumont, on 25 February, Fleury became particularly exposed to pressure from the enemy. Situated between the fortifications of Froideterre and Souville, it lay at the heart of the defence of Verdun.

By May 1916, the village was in ruins. After the loss of Fort Vaux, on 7 June, Fleury became decisive in the battle for Verdun. Fierce grenade battles took place here, giving the French considerable cause for concern. Between June and August, the village changed hands 16 times. In this fiercely contested sector, where the units engaged soon reached the limit of their strength, the French troops of the 128th and 130th Infantry Divisions vied with each other in audacity against the Bavarian guard and the elite units of the Alpenkorps. Stepping up the battering, the Germans were now no more than four kilometres from Verdun. On 11 July 1916, they captured the Fleury powder magazine, a munitions store dug out of the rock, ten metres below ground.

Yet the German impetus was halted, because the French soldiers had received orders to stand firm everywhere and counter-attack with whatever resources were available. At considerable human cost, the French clung to their positions and succeeded in defusing the pressure from the enemy. The ruins of the village were finally retaken on 18 August by the marsouins of the Colonial Infantry Regiment of Morocco, and were used as a base for the autumn offensives whose objective was to recapture the forts of Douaumont and Vaux.

There is nothing left of the village and surrounding farms. In 1918, the village of Fleury-devant-Douaumont was one of 12 villages in the department awarded the status of “village meusien mort pour la France” (Meuse village that died for France). After receiving an army citation in September 1920, the ruins of the village of Fleury were included in the “red zone”, over time becoming a key remembrance site of the Battle of Verdun.

The ossuary

Officially opened on 23 June 1929 by President Gaston Doumergue, the national cemetery was bound up with the construction of the Douaumont ossuary, since there had been no front-line cemetery here during the First World War. Dominating the cemetery, this imposing monument was erected on the initiative of Monseigneur Ginisty, bishop of Verdun. From as early as 1919, it was often impossible to attribute an identity, or even a nationality, to hundreds of thousands of remains found scattered across the sectors of the Verdun region. Monseigneur Ginisty, chairman of the ossuary’s committee, travelled throughout France and across the world giving talks to raise the funds needed to erect the final monument.

The first stone was laid on 20 August 1920 by Marshal Pétain, honorary chairman of the ossuary’s committee. The transfer of the bones from the temporary ossuary to the permanent ossuary took place in September 1927. It was officially opened on 7 August 1932 by President Albert Lebrun, at a ceremony attended by French and foreign dignitaries and a huge crowd of veterans, pilgrims and families of the dead and disappeared.

With its grandness and clean lines, this imposing structure was designed by Léon Azéma, Max Edrei and Jacques Hardy. The main body of the monument consists of a 137-metre-long cloister, with recesses housing the 46 tombs (one for each main sector of the battlefield, from Avocourt to Les Éparges) containing the remains of 130 000 French and German soldiers. In line with the cloister, above the main porch, stands a “Tower of the Dead” in the form of a lighthouse whose rotating beam illuminates the former battlefield.  Rising to a height of 46 metres, the tower offers panoramic views and from it a two-tonne bell, the “Bell of Victory”, rings out at each ceremony.
Today, the monument is part of the Meuse landscape. For some, it resembles a sword embedded in the earth up to its hilt, with only the handle showing, serving as a lantern. For others, the tower evokes a shell, a symbol the industrialisation of this major battle of the First World War. Meanwhile, the cloister may evoke the soldiers’ heroic defence of Verdun, or embody the Verdun fortifications, against which waves of enemy attacks proved in vain.

Close to the cemetery are two other religious monuments. One, erected in 1938, is in memory of the Jewish soldiers who died for France in the First World War. The other, located in the commune of Douaumont and unveiled in 2006, honours the Muslim soldiers killed in that conflict.

At the foot of the main staircase, the remains of General François Anselin, killed in action on 24 October 1916, were buried in 1948. Assigned on request to the command of the 214th Brigade, he was mortally wounded by shrapnel while conducting operations in the Poudrière ravine aimed at recapturing Fort Douaumont.

Facing the cemetery, a plaque remembers the historic handshake between President François Mitterrand and Chancellor Helmut Kohl that sealed Franco-German reconciliation in 1984.

The complex comprising the National Cemetery of Fleury-devant-Douaumont and the Bayonet Trench is classed as a Major National Remembrance Site, in honour of the sacrifice made by French soldiers in the Great War at Verdun (1914-18).

Ossuaire de Douaumont

55 100 Douaumont

Tél. : 03.29.84.54.81

Fax : 03.29.86.56.54

Mail : infos@verdun-douaumont.com

Departmental Tourist Board
Tel.: +33 (0)3.29.45.78.40

Verdun National Cemeteries Department

13, rue du 19ème BCP

55100 Verdun

Tel.: +33 (0)3.29.86.02.96

Fax: +33 (0)3.29.86.33.06

Email: diracmetz@wanadoo.fr

Opening times

The National Cemetery of Douaumont is open to the public all year round.
Douaumont Ossuary is open to the public free of charge from September to November. 9 am to 12 pm and 2 pm to 5 pm / 6 pm - December: 2 pm to 5 pm - 
Closed from 1 February to the February school holidays - March: 9 am to 12 pm and 2 pm to 5.30 pm - April to August: 9 am to 6 pm / 6.30 pm

Douaumont Ossuary

Meuse Departemental Authority

Meuse Tourist Board

Verdun tTrism Office

Initially a private collection, this project grew to such an extent that it turned into a veritable museum overseen by the “Mémoire des combattants en Gascogne” (Memory of the Gascony Fighters) association.

From the beginning, the founders placed their museum space at the crossroads of remembrance and the memory of contemporary conflicts.

The choice was thus made to offer visitors a historical journey through the two World Wars.

The museum chronologically presents the evolution of soldiers’ arms and uniforms from the Great War to the Résistance.

This undertaking is unique in the Gers department and presents widely diverse collections for the pleasure and interest of all:

front pages of newspapers, photos, posters, letters, brassards, containers, arms, uniforms, etc.

Visits and admission price: The museum is open year-round to all, free of charge, by appointment.

Musée des anciens combattants pour la liberté

Museum of the veterans of the fight for freedom:

Malherbe - 32500 Brugnens - Tel.: +33 (0)5 62 06 14 51

Association “Mémoire des combattants en Gascogne”

“Memory of the Gascony Fighters” Association:

Tel.: +33 (0)5 62 06 62 06

e-mail: elian.dasilva@wanadoo.fr

e-mail: xavier.da-silva@orange.fr

Office National des Anciens Combattants du Gers

Gers National Office of Veterans:

29, chemin de Baron – 32000 Auch – Tel.: +33 (0)5 62 05 01 32 – Fax: +33 (0)5 62 05 51 05

e-mail: dir.sd32@onacvg.fr

Founded in 1954 by Louis Villanova, Marcel Daguzan and Louis Leroy, the Auch Museum of Resistance and Deportation, in Gers, was opened on 5 October 1975 by Andre Bord, the then Veterans Minister. The exhibits feature objects, documents and other items from the period owned by resistance veterans.

This remembrance space preserves these important relics for generations to come and keeps the memory of the Resistance operations in Gers alive.

One of the objectives of the museum association founded in 1994 is to expand the collections over time. The exhibition rooms lead visitors through the history of the Resistance from its first steps to the region's liberation. One room is also dedicated to the Deportation, displaying objects, documents, illustrations and a memorial to the deportees from Gers.

Auch Resistance and Deportation Museum

rue Pagodoutés

32000 Auch

Tel: +33 (0)5 62 05 74 79

                 +33 (0)5 62 61 21 85

Free admission

Enquire for opening days and times.

Gers Resistance and Deportation Museum Association : Auch Town Hall

Departmental office for the national bureau of war veterans and victims of war

29, chemin de Baron - 32000 Auch

Tel: +33 (0)5 62 05 01 32 - Fax: +33 (0)5 62 05 51 05

Email: dir.sd32@onacvg.fr

This memorial is dedicated to the Pommiès Free Corps (Corps Franc Pommiès or CFP), a prestigious detachment of the Résistance who, by sabotaging the Hispano-Suiza (Alstom) factory, spared the population the cruel consequences of aerial bombardment during the Second World War.

This army, organised by General André Pommiès turned the Magnoac region into a hard nucleus of the French Résistance. Born in 1904 in Bordeaux, Lieutenant Colonel Pommiès had trained in the information services, retaining his military contacts and a sense of organisation.

In 1940, Pommiès refused to accept the defeat. He was given the task of secretly mobilising an army in the High and Low Pyrenees, the Landes and the Gers regions.

The Free Corps was very actively involved in the liberation of the country. In fact, the Pommiès Free Corps was one of the main constituents of the Army Résistance Organisation (Organisation de Résistance de l'Armée or "ORA") in the southern zone.

On the very day the Army was disbanded, 17 November 1942, Captain André Pommiès decided to create a Free Corps on the territory of the 17th and 18th military divisions (the south west). In each département, an officer was appointed to set up a clandestine unit. For two years, "maquisards" (members of the Résistance) from the Free Corps were used in transporting weapons and equipment, parachute drops and sabotage of the principal means of transport and energy production used by the occupying forces in the region. At the end of 1943, the southern zone was 30,000 strong and the northern zone 15,000.

Alerted by messages from the BBC, on 6 June 1944 Pommiès called on all his personnel (12,000 men) to use guerrilla tactics and intensify their destructive actions. After the Allied landings in Provence on 15 August 1944, battles for liberation succeeded guerrilla warfare. The Pommiès Free Corps took Auch, Pau and Tarbes. He was then given the mission of preventing members of the Wehrmacht, the Gestapo and collaborators from crossing to Spain. Whilst one section of the forces of the Pommiès Free Corps was maintained in the Pyrenees to guard the border, the other sections headed to the northeast. After crossing France, they met up with the army of General de Lattre de Tassigny at Autun and took part in the fighting for the liberation of the town between 7 and 9 September 1944.

On 24 September, fighters from the Pommiès Free Corps were incorporated into the body of the 1st Army. Now having become regular soldiers, they took part in the Vosges campaign and then that of the Alsace, most famously taking the strategic heights of le Drumont and le Gommkopf. In February 1945, the Pommiès Free Corps became the 49th Infantry Regiment (49e Régiment d'Infanterie or 49e RI), a former regiment of Bayonne with a glorious past, adopting its flag with a black star. On 1 April, the regiment arrived in Germany and advanced towards its final objective, Stuttgart, which it took on 21 April 1945. From its foundation up until the Liberation, the C.F.P was to carry out 900 military operations. The human cost was particularly heavy: 387 killed and 156 deported.
On 6 June, former members of the network came to join in private prayer during an anniversary ceremony. In June 2003 a museum area was opened in the café "Bouges" in the centre of Castelnau-Magnoac, which served as a letter drop for the maquis (Resistance fighters).
 

Memorial and museum of the Pommiès Free Corps

Esplanade Village 65230 Castelnau-Magnoac

Tel: + 33 (0) 5 62 99 81 41

Site du musée

Tourist Information Office

Maison du Magnoac 65230 Cizos

Tel. + 33 (0) 5.62.39.86.61

Fax: + 33 (0) 5.62.39.81.60

Tourist Office

3, Cours Gambetta 65000 Tarbes

Tel.: + 33 (0) 5.62.51.30.31

Fax: + 33 (0) 5.62.44.17.63

E-mail: accueil@tarbes.com

Mont-Valérien was a medieval hermitage and later a popular place of pilgrimage from the 17th to 19th centuries. In the middle of 19th century one of the forts forming part of the Parisian belt was built there. During the Second World War, the site was the German authorities' principal place for executions in France. From 1944 onwards, thanks to support from General de Gaulle and the work of the organisations of the families of those who were shot, it became a memorial site. The Mémorial de la France combattante was built there in 1960 and in 2010 new museum exhibition areas were opened.

Throughout the Second World War, Mont-Valérien was used by the Germans as a place for executing resistance fighters and hostages. The prisoners were shot in a sunken glade. Recent historical research has allowed the identification of more than a thousand of those who were shot.

On the 1st November 1944, General de Gaulle paid tribute to the dead of the Résistance by first of all engaging in private prayer in the glade at Mont-Valérien, before continuing to the fort at Vincennes, another place where shootings were carried out in Paris, and finally to the cemetery in Ivry-sur-Seine, the main burial place of those from the Île-de-France area who were shot. In 1945, Mont-Valérien was chosen by General de Gaulle as the site of the monument to those who died in the 1939-1945 war.

The bodies of fifteen servicemen, symbolising the various forms of combat carried out for the Liberation, were placed in a temporary crypt and joined in 1952 by a sixteenth body representing soldiers in Indochina who fought against the Japanese. A 17th vault was later prepared to receive the remains of the last Companion of the Liberation.

In 1954, an urn containing the ashes of deportees was placed in the crypt. Having become President of the Republic, General de Gaulle decided to create the Mémorial de la France combattante, which was designed by Félix Brunau and inaugurated on the 18th June 1960.

At the beginning of 2000, it was decided to build a monument to those who were shot at Mont-Valérien, which was designed by Pascal Convert. Engraved upon it are all the names of those shot at Mont-Valérien, along with a dedication: "To the resistance fighters and hostages shot at Mont-Valérien by Nazi troops 1940-1944 and to all those who have never been identified".

For a long time Mont-Valérien has remained just as it was, which gives it a great evocative power. Since 2006, the site has been the subject of a special drive by the remembrance, heritage and archives department of the Ministry of Defence to carry out developments to provide the general public with the written resources necessary for an understanding of this important and complex, unrecognised place of national remembrance.

Located on the esplanade of the Mémorial de la France combattante, the information centre allows visitors to consulter biographical papers, as well as digitalised letters, photographs, and archive and Ile-de-France documents about those who were shot, using interactive terminals.

A special area is devoted to the Companions of the Liberation. In addition, there are screens showing archive images of the history of the shootings and about the Mémorial de la France combattante and the ceremonies that have been held there. A permanent exhibition "Résistance and repression 1940-1944" is held in the old stable building. Dedicated to the Résistance, those who were shot and repression in the Ile-de-France area, it helps to put Mont-Valérien in a historical and geographical context.

The exhibition thus retraces the development of the policies of repression and the journey of those who were shot, from their arrest and internment up to their execution. It shows the various places of imprisonment, execution and burial in the Ile-de-France. The central part is more intimate and dedicated to the last letters of those who were shot, the last traces left for their families, which bear witness to the commitment and martyrdom of these men.
 

Le Mont Valérien

Avenue du Professeur Léon Bernard 92150 Suresnes

Tel.: + 33 (0) 1 47 28 46 35

Email: info@montvalerien.fr

Tours of Mont-Valérien are free and guided; they last an hour and thirty minutes and are at set times, every day except Monday: Low Season*: 10h00, 15h00 High season*: 9h30-11h00, 14h30-16h00 Groups of more than 10 people by appointment only

The reception and information Centre is open every day except Monday, Low season*: 9 am to 12 pm and 1pm to 5 pm High season*: 9 am to 12 pm and 1pm to 6 pm Low season: November-February, July-August High season: March-June, September-October

How to get to the Memorial BY TRAIN: The Paris Saint Lazare to Versailles line to Suresnes station BY RATP: RER line A La Défense or line no. 1 La Défense and then bus no. 360 (Mont Valérien or Hôpital Foch Cluseret stops) BY TRAMWAY: Val de Seine T2 La Défense to Issy-les-Moulineaux - Suresnes: Longchamp Station BY CAR: Porte Maillot - Pont de Suresnes The site is closed to the public on the 1st January, 15th August, 1st November and 25th and 31th December.

Fort du Portalet, in the Pyrénées-Atlantique, was designed to defend the road from le Somport (Aspe Valley) and is famous for having been used as a prison for Léon Blum, Edouard Daladier, Georges Mandel and Paul Reynaud in 1941 and 1942 and later for Marshal Pétain. It was built following an order given by Louis-Philippe on the 22nd July 1842 to protect the Pyrenees border from a possible Spanish invasion.

The structure was built at an altitude of 765 metres on a cliff on the right bank of the Gave d'Aspe, downriver from Urdos. It takes its name from the former medieval commercial toll bridge, le "Portalet", of La Porte d'Aspe, situated 100 metres further down. The accommodation comprises a barracks for the troops and officers' lodge, both built on two levels. A small upper fort of three bastions equipped with batteries, protects the lanes from the le Rouglan plateau and la Mâture. The road and the Urdos were covered by the creation of crenulated galleries carved into the rock. Equipped with around ten canons, the stronghold could accommodate more than 400 men and seal off access for a siege lasting at least a week.
The 18th Infantry Regiment of Pau was stationed there from 1871; it remained there until 1925. From there, it saw action from 1875 to 1876 against Spanish Carlist soldiers. On the eve of the First World War, the fort was left in civilian hands and remained so until 1940, when the Vichy regime interned those people deemed to be "responsible for the defeat" following the Riom trial. Amongst them were Léon Blum, Edouard Daladier, Georges Mandel, Paul Reynaud and Maurice Gamelin. When, in November 1942, the Free Zone was invaded, the sector was used as a position for German troops. The fort was liberated on the 24th August 1944 by Resistance fighters from Aspe and Spanish Guerillas. Following the liberation, between August and November 1945, le Portalet was used as a place of internment for Marshal Pétain before he was transferred to the island of Yeu.
Aspe Valley Tourist Information Office Place Sarraillé 64490 Bedous Tel.: + 33 (0) 5 59 34 57 57 Email: aspe.tourisme@wanadoo.fr

The town of Seyre near Nailloux preserves the memory of some one hundred German Jewish children who stayed here. They stayed from the summer of 1940 to the spring of 1941 and left lively drawings on the walls of the Château’s outbuildings.

Having become orphans after Kristallnacht and the wave of anti-Semitic actions that swept over Nazi Germany, many German Jewish children sought refuge in England, Belgium and France, where they were taken care of by charitable organisations.

Driven out of Belgium by the Wehrmacht’s offensive of May 1940, one hundred of them between the ages of 3 and 15 travelled for six days in cattle cars to Villefranche de Lauragais and then Seyre (10 km south of Villefranche de Lauragais and 4 km from Nailloux).

Upon their arrival, the mayor of Seyre and the owner of the Château and its outbuildings, Mr Capèle, took charge of them; at the time the latter held a high position in the French Red Cross.

The refugees’ living conditions were very modest for the eighty-five people (children and their caregivers): two rooms, a kitchen and toilets in the courtyard, no water and no heating.

Finding supplies was the main problem. The Swiss Red Cross, with which Mr Capel d'Hautpoul had contacts, sent sugar and powdered milk, but most of the food had to be found on site, which was very difficult. The basic foodstuff was boiled maize, called milla. The harsh winter of 1940-1941 led the Swiss Red Cross to find more comfortable lodgings for them.

The Château de La Hille in Ariège was chosen. On the walls of the village and the building, which is still called “the orphanage” to this day, the children left several colour drawings, such a the “Little Pigs”, a cat with a violin, the church and a watermill.

Town Hall

31560 Seyre

Tel.: +33 (0)5.62.71.26.25

The Espace Aimé Césaire, a new exhibition space open to the public (click here for information)

The Musée de la Résistance Nationale (MRN) is a collective whose purpose is to cater for one essential need: to pass on the history and memory of the Resistance.

The museum space and learning area

This building, with 1 000 m2 of exhibition space on three floors and a 120-seat auditorium, houses the new museum and learning areas, as well as the temporary exhibitions of the new MRN.
The building’s ideal location in the centre of Champigny-sur-Marne makes the MRN more accessible by public transport and closer to its audience.
With its rich collection, the new permanent exhibition presents all the aspects and key issues of the history and remembrance of the Resistance. A cultural programme adds to the content on offer to visitors and individuals keen to gain a better understanding of modern-day issues in the light of that history.
The Espace Aimé Césaire also offers a scientific programme, making the latest advances in research more accessible.

Espace Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac: the research and conservation centre 

The continuing expansion of the collection since 1965 (approximately 250 000 items in 1985; nearly one million today) meant that new storage areas had to be provided for in the new museum buildings.
Therefore, the old site, on Avenue Marx-Dormoy, became a conservation and consultation centre for the collections, as well as the head office of the project’s two mother organisations.
Altogether, the MRN’s collection, which since November 2000 has been dependent on an agreement with the National Archives, was constituted by more than 5 000 donations. It offers an exceptional insight into the history of the French Resistance, its remembrance and the historical works it has inspired. Its scale and diversity present the stories of thousands of Resistance members: men and women; French citizens, immigrants and foreigners; famous and anonymous.