The son of a railway agent, Henri Petit was born on 13 February 1897 at Firminy, in the Loire department.

He studied at the lycée in Saint Etienne and, in 1915, signed up for the duration of the war in the 13^th Light Cavalry Battalion. He was promoted to the rank of Corporal and then Sergeant, and received an Order of the Army citation and the Légion d'Honneur. Admitted to Saint-Cyr military school in 1918 as part of the reserves, he graduated an aspirant. Transferred to Aviation, he joined the B.R.127 squadron, assigned to daytime bombing. He was named Second Lieutenant before being discharged.

He went back to school in Lyon, earning a “licence” degree in law and then worked in public relations and advertising for publishing houses. In 1928, he founded the Stefa advertising agency in Saint Etienne.

As a reserve aviation captain, he was called up in August of 1939 and commanded the air bases at Cannes and Nice. He did not accept the armistice of June 1940 and tried in vain to join General Charles de Gaulle in London. In 1942, Henri Romans-Petit arrived in the Ain department, where he immediately contacted the Resistance. After a few months, in December 1942, he began to organise accommodations for people who refused the Compulsory Work Service (STO).

In June 1943, near Mongriffon, he set up a staff school to train Maquisards, whose numbers in the region were on the rise.

In July 1943, the camps, which did not contain more than 60 men for safety and mobility reasons, were fully structured. At the same time, there were more and more contacts between the Ain Maquis and the Armée Secrète (AS – Secret Army).

In September, under the direction of Romans-Petit, the Maquisards achieved two major feats: they took an “Intendance des Chantiers de Jeunesse” depot in Artemare and the “Intendance de l'Armée” in Bourg-en-Bresse.

In October 1943, Romans-Petit became a military leader in charge of the Armée Secrète (AS – Secret Army) for the Ain department.

On 11 November 1943, he organise the famous parade by part of his troops (250 men) in Oyonnax.

In front of a surprised, and then delighted, crowd, he laid a wreath in the shape of the Cross of Lorraine at the war memorial before leaving town in good order. The Oyonnax parade, filmed by Henri Jaboulay’s son, was widely reported in the underground press and on London radio, and had a major impact on the French population and on the Allies, for whom the armed French resistance was no longer just an abstract idea. At the end of the year, as the number of paramilitary fighters in the Ain department (AS and Maquis) reached 2,000 men, he took control of the underground forces and the AS of the Haute-Savoie department, replacing Commander Vallette d'Osia; he applied the same principles as in the Ain: staff training school, short actions with rapid retreat. He worked in liaison with London through the “Musc” mission, comprising Jean Rosenthal (Cantinier), in charge of Maquis inspections, and Richard Heslop (Xavier) of the British SOE.

To meet the needs of weapons parachute drops, he chose the Plateau des Glières near Annecy where, in January 1944, all the Maquisards in the department came together.

He returned to the Ain after turning command of Les Glières over to “Tom” Morel.

When 5,000 Germans, backed up by aviation, massively attacked the Maquis camps of the Ain, massacring the Maquisards, Romans-Petit immediately went to the site on skis, looking for survivors and slipping past the Germans. He then reorganised the Maquis and met the head of the forces in the Haut-Jura department.

On 6 April 1944, several thousands Wehrmacht soldiers came together in the Ambérieu region and launched an attacked the next day. Colonel Romans-Petit then decided to disperse the Maquis; they nonetheless organised nighttime sabotage operations. The Germans took revenge on the villages of Oyonnax and Saint-Claude, amongst others. On 6 June 1944, informed of the Normandy landing, the Maquisards destroyed the depot in Ambérieu, a major centre of the railway network for the southeast. Fifty-two locomotives and ten machines tools were put out of service.

That same month, Henri Romans-Petit was named a Compagnon de la Libération by decree signed by General de Gaulle.

On 11 July 1944, the Germans attempted a major counter-offensive with some 27,000 men. The 5,000 Maquisards under Colonel Romans-Petit were able to resist despite the violent fighting. In September, the Ain department was liberated.

After the war, Henri Romans-Petit went back to his job in advertising. He was also a corporate officer, notably in electronics. Honorary President of the Veterans of the Ain and Haute-Savoie Maquis and President of the National Association of Air Resistance Fighters (Association nationale des Résistants de l'Air), he was also a member of the LICRA executive committee.

He was the author of several books on the war, notably “Les Obstinés” and, in 1974, “Les Maquis de l'Ain”.

Henri Romans-Petit died on 1 November 1980 in Ceignes, in the Ain department. His funeral ceremony was held at the Val d'Enfer memorial in Cerdon (Ain).

He was buried in the cemetery of Oyonnax.

• Grand Officer of the Légion d'Honneur
• Compagnon de la Libération - decree of 16 June 1944
• Croix de Guerre 14/18
• Croix de Guerre 39/45
• Médaille de la Résistance
• Officer of the Legion of Merit (USA)
• Distinguished Service Order (GB)
• Officer of the Order of Leopold (Belgium)
• Croix de Guerre (Belgium)
• Grand Officer of the Nicham Iftikhar
• Commander of the Order of Merit (Congo)
• Officer of the Order of Merit (Cameroon)

Henri Romans-Petit is the author of:

• Les Obstinés, Editions Janicot, Lille 1945

• L'Appel de l'aventure, Editions Dorian, Saint-Etienne 1947

• Les Maquis de l'Ain, Hachette, Paris 1974

< Joséphine Baker in 1948.

Josephine Baker entered the Pantheon on 30 November 2021 at a ceremony presided over by the French president, Emmanuel Macron. The American-born music hall legend who was a member of the French Resistance and an anti-racist activist fought for every cause. The perfect embodiment of the role of women engaged in the struggle led by Free France, she received full honours from her adoptive homeland.

Visit an online exhibition about Josephine Baker on the Musée de la Résistance website

Born on 3 June 1906 to Carrie McDonald and Eddie Carson, Baker grew up in a poor neighbourhood of St. Louis, Missouri. At the age of 13, she left home and worked as a waitress. She first started dancing in small dance troupes before joining the Jones Family Band that performed from Washington to St. Louis. She moved to New York at the age of 18 where she performed in various productions including the Folies Bergère and the Revue Nègre.

In 1925, her troupe performed in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. The young artiste swiftly won the hearts of Parisian audiences where jazz was all the rage. A cabaret dancer, she performed a dance number named the ‘Danse Sauvage’. A year later, she was headlining revues at the Folies Bergère. She danced there sporting her famous belt of bananas and took to singing too. In 1930, she performed her revue at the Casino de Paris, hers following the show of another legendary music hall artiste, Mistinguett, including the song ‘J’ai deux amours’. In Europe, she notched up success after success: she was named queen of the Paris Colonial Exposition in 1931, starred in films ‘Zouzou’ with Jean Gabin and ‘Princesse Tamtam’, performed at the Casino de Paris in ‘Si j'étais blanche’ and in 1934 put on ‘La Créole’, an operetta by Offenbach.

The following year, Josephine Baker was back in the US where she presented her show to mixed reviews. She returned to France where, in 1937, she married a Frenchman and became a French citizen.

When war was declared, she was still able to perform at the Folies Bergère and the Casino de Paris alongside Maurice Chevalier. Faithful to her adoptive country, Josephine Baker joined the Resistance, working for Free France's intelligence service serving as a sub-lieutenant in the Women’s Auxiliary of the Free French Air Force. It was Daniel Marouani who suggested to Jacques Abtey, head of the military counter-espionage unit in Paris, to enlist her.   During the phony war (September 1939 to May 1940), Josephine Baker gathered intel on the location of German troops from officials she would meet at parties. At the same time, she performed at the Maginot Line fortification to raise the troops’ morale. However, from summer 1940 onwards, the Maginot Line was breached and, due to the racist laws instated by the government, she was banned from the stage. Scheduled anyway to go on tour around Portugal and South America, accompanied by Abtey, she smuggled intelligence to Portugal written in invisible ink on her music scores. She revived ‘La Créole’ as a means to resume contact with Captain Paul Paillole, chief of the French secret service, in Marseille before rejoining Abtey in Portugal, then a neutral country, and heading over to North Africa. En route for Morocco, she helped Solmsen, a German-born film producer, and her friend Fritz to leave France.

Settling in Marrakesh, she fostered political relations: Moulay Larbi el-Alaoui, the sultan’s cousin, and Si Mohammed Menebhi, his brother-in-law, son of the former Grand Vizier, and Si Thami el-Glaoui, the Pasha of Marrakesh. From 1943 onwards, Josephine Baker was a true ambassador of Free France. In the spring, she went on a long tour of North Africa, Egypt and the Mashriq. For the occasion, she was officially appointed sub-lieutenant of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Free French Air Force. Baker’s resistance activities were made public in 1949 in a book published by Jacques Abtey (La Guerre Secrète de Joséphine Baker) accompanied by a letter from General de Gaulle.

Official recognition was received on 18 August 1961: General Valin awarded her the Cross of the Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre with palm.

Remarried to Jo Bouillon, she was an active defender of civil rights and came to the aid of war victims, hosting a series of charity galas. Her charity work ended up eclipsing her entertainment career from which she retired in 1949. She bought a château in Milandes, in France’s Périgord region, and adopted 12 children.

After ending up in financial strife, she resumed her world tours performing in theatres where cabaret had stopped being such a huge money-earner. Her dogged determination brought her back to the Bobino stage in 1975 for a show that took a look back on her life. The success was short-lived since she died four days after the premier following a short illness.

Sources : Abtey J., 2e Bureau contre Abwehr, Paris, La Table Ronde, 1966 - Abtey J., La Guerre secrète de Josephine Baker, Paris, Siboney, 1949

Bilé S., Noirs dans les camps nazis, Editions du Serpent à Plumes, 2005

For more information:

• A page dedicated to Josephine Baker’s induction into the French Pantheon

Born on the 2nd February 1889 in Mouilleron-en-Pareds, in the Vendée, into an old aristocratic family from French Flanders, Jean-Marie de Lattre de Tassigny received a first class education at Saint Joseph's college in Poitiers.

Military career

From 1898 until 1904 he trained at the naval School and was accepted by Saint-Cyr in 1908. He took classes at the 29th Dragoons in Provins. He was a pupil at Saint-Cyr from 1909 until 1911, in the "Mauritania" class where he came fourth in his year. In 1911 he attended the school of cavalry in Saumur. In 1912 he was posted to the 12th Dragoons in Pont-à-Mousson and then to the front. During the First World War he was captain of the 93rd infantry regiment and ended the war with 4 injuries and 8 commendations. He was then posted to the 49th infantry regiment in Bayonne from 1919 to 1921. In 1921 he was sent to Morocco to the 3rd bureau and to the headquarters for the Taza region until 1926. From 1927 to 1929 he took courses at the French war college with the 49th class. He married Simone de Lamazière in 1927 and they had a son in 1928. In 1929 he became Head of Battalion to the 5th infantry regiment at Coulommiers.

In 1932 he was promoted to the high command of the army and then to that of General Maxime Weygand, Vice-President of the Upper War Council, as Lieutenant Colonel. In 1935 he became Colonel, commanding the 151st infantry regiment at Metz. Between 1937 and 1938 he took courses at the centre of higher military studies and in 1938 became the governor of Strasbourg's Chief of Staff.

Second World War

Promoted to Brigade General on the 23rd March 1939, by the 2nd September 1939 he was Chief of Staff of the 5th army. On the 1st January 1940 he took command of the 14th infantry division, which he commanded during the confrontations with the Wehrmacht at Rethel, where his division held out heroically, as far as Champagne and the Yonne, miraculously maintaining its military cohesion in the middle of all the chaos of the debacle. From July 1940 until September 1941, he was deputy to the Commanding General of the 13th military region at Clermont-Ferrand and then became Division General, commanding troops in Tunisia until the end of 1941. He subsequently commanded the 16th division at Montpellier and was promoted to General of the army corps. When the Free Zone was invaded by German troops, he refused to obey the order not to fight and was arrested. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison by the State tribunal of the Lyon section. Managing to escape from Riom prison on the 3rd September 1943, he went to London and then on to Algiers, arriving on the 20th December 1943, after promotion to the rank of Army General by General de Gaulle on the 11th November 1943. In December 1943 he commanded the B army, which became the first French army. He landed in Provence on the 16th August 1944, took Toulon and Marseille, headed back up the Rhone valley and then the Rhine, liberating the Alsace, entering Germany and advancing as far as the Danube. He represented France at the signing of the armistice on the 8th May 1945 in Berlin at the headquarters of Marshal Joukov.

After the war

Between December 1945 and March 1947, he was Inspector General and Commander in Chief of the army. In March 1947 he was Inspector General of the army and then Inspector General of the armed forces. From October 1948 until December 1950, he was Commander in Chief of the western European armies at Fontainebleau. He became High Commissioner and Commander in Chief in Indochina and Commander in Chief in the Far East (1950-1952) and established a national Vietnamese army. Exhausted by the strenuous workload to which he had been subjected throughout his career, which had not been helped by the injuries he had received in 1914, deeply affected by the death of his son Bernard, killed during the Indochina campaign and suffering from cancer, he died in Paris on the 11th January 1952, following an operation. He was posthumously promoted to the dignified position of Marshal of France at his funeral on the 15th January 1952. He is buried in his home village of Mouilleron-en-Pareds.

Henri Frenay was born in Lyon on 19 November 1905. His father was an officer, as both of his sons were going to be. Frenay belonged to the generation that celebrated France's victory in 1918 and harboured a fierce hatred for Germany. He attended the Saint-Cyr military academy from 1924 to 1926 before serving in metropolitan France between 1926 and 1929 and in Syria from 1929 to 1933, when he returned to France. In 1935 an event occurred that changed the course of Frenay's life: he met Berty Albrecht, an outstanding woman, a major figure in the feminist movement and a campaigner for human rights. She participated in welcoming Hitler's earliest exiles to France. Through her, Frenay became acquainted with another milieu, woke up to the Nazi threat and came to realise that it was much more than an extreme form of pan-Germanism. That is probably why he decided, after attending the War College, from 1937 to 1938, to study at the Institute of Germanic Studies in Strasbourg, where he could observe the Nazi doctrine up close and see how it was being applied in Germany. Frenay realised that confrontation was inevitable, and that it would be a clash of civilisations that would not be anything like the First World War.

Captain Frenay was assigned to Ingwiller when war broke out. He was captured but managed to escape. He rejected the armistice, and in July 1940 wrote a manifesto that was the first call for armed struggle. In December 1940 he was assigned to Vichy, where he briefly worked in the intelligence department. He resigned from the army in February 1941. Frenay went underground to focus completely on building and organising the Resistance that he had been dreaming of since the summer of 1940. Berty Albrecht came to live with him in Vichy and, later, Lyon. They were inseparable until she died in 1943. Frenay organised the earliest recruitments of people who, like him, rejected the armistice. He printed communiqués and, later, underground newspapers (Les Petites Ailes and Vérités) that showed a certain amount of trust in Pétain and a belief that Vichy might have been playing a double game. At the same time, he met Jean Moulin, who gathered information from him about the Resistance and reported it to de Gaulle in London. Then Frenay founded the National Liberation Movement (MLN) and, with help from Berty Albrecht, started putting out a newspaper called Vérités in September 1941. In November, he met the academic François de Menthon, who was head of the Liberté movement, which printed a newspaper with the same name. The MLN and Liberté merged, creating the Combat movement and an eponymous newspaper. It quickly became the occupied zone's biggest and best-organised movement. By 1942, the Vichy police was looking for Frenay. In the summer, 100,000 copies of Combat were printed. That swift growth occurred without any help from the French in London, whom Frenay view with much wariness. Combat did not declare its loyalty to de Gaulle and condemn Pétain's policies until March 1942. On the 1st of October, Frenay was in London to sign his allegiance to de Gaulle. Combat was able to grow and to finance its leadership with funds supplied by Jean Moulin.

Frenay was convinced that the Resistance had to have training in armed struggle and organised the secret army's first cells in the summer of 1942. In 1943, the United Resistance Movement (MUR), which brought together the southern zone's main movements - Combat, Libération and Franc-Tireur - was created under the impetus of Jean Moulin. Frenay was on the MUR executive board. However, the two men clashed with each other. Frenay's independence was strengthened by a legitimacy that owed nothing to no-one, and he chafed at London's financial and political control as well as the increasing bureaucratisation of the homeland Resistance. He created the biggest structured movement - the Secret Army - and the NAP (infiltration of the government) and favoured the MUR's creation, but opposed the reconstitution of political parties, which Moulin wanted to include on the National Resistance Council. For the sake of independence, he also criticised the idea of separating the political and the military. In addition, he was against the idea of a national uprising. General de Gaulle asked Frenay to join the French National Liberation Committee in Algiers. He became commissioner - in other words, minister - of prisoners, deportees and refugees, continuing to hold that post when the government moved to Paris after the Liberation. In that capacity he managed the huge problems posed by the return of French citizens scattered throughout Nazi-occupied Europe. Twenty thousand came home in March 1945, 313,000 in April, 900,000 in May and 276,000 in June. In July, Minister Frenay considered the repatriation over. In November 1945, Frenay started a movement to create what was going to become the Fighting France Memorial at Mont Valérien before resigning from his post.

Frenay's deep disappointment at seeing the old political parties return to domestic squabbling prompted him to embrace the cause of European federalism. In his articles for Combat, Frenay wrote about his dream of a Europe reconciled with itself and with Germany. As president of the European Union of Federalists created in 1946, he did his utmost to convince governments to abandon the framework of the Nation-State, create a single European currency and build a European army. When General de Gaulle returned to power in 1958, Frenay realised that the dream was over. He completely dropped out of public life to write his Resistance memoirs. That very beautiful book, La Nuit (Night), finally came out in 1973. At the time of its publication, Frenay thought he discovered the underlying reasons for his rivalry with Jean Moulin. Until his death in 1988, guided more by resentment than by the quest for truth, he took every opportunity to accuse Moulin of being a "crypto-communist" who would have betrayed de Gaulle and the Resistance. That questionable combat was one too many. The collective memory will not forgive him for it.

Vincent Auriol was one of the most important figures in contemporary French history. a Socialist movement leader, negotiator at the reparations conference with Germany in 1918, fierce foe of the Vichy regime and one of the Fourth Republic's "founding fathers". Vincent Jules Auriol was born into a farm family in Revel (Haute-Garonne). He earned the baccalaureate in Latin and Greek in 1902 and a law degree in 1905, the same year that he joined the socialist federation of Haute-Garonne. Then he earned a doctorate in political science and became a member of the Toulouse bar. He wrote for the newspaper La Dépêche du Midi, founded Le Midi Socialiste with Albert Bedouce, minister of parliament and mayor of Toulouse, and maintained a steady correspondence with Jean Jaurès and Jules Guesde. In June 1912 he married Michelle Accouturier and the couple had two children: Paul (1918-1992), who organised the Tarn Resistance, and Jacqueline (1912-2000), who in 1952 broke the world jet-plane speed record.

From May 1914 to May 1936, Auriol was the Socialist representative of the town of Muret at the National Assembly, where he specialised in economic and financial issues. From 1914 he was a member of the definitive accounts committee. During the peace conference after the First World War, Auriol advocated limiting Germany's debt and reparations to war-torn areas and cancelling all interallied debts. In December 1920, he was among the 12 Socialist members of parliament who followed Léon Blum and refused to join the Communist International. Auriol was elected mayor of Muret in May 1925, joined the finance committee, which he chaired from June 1924 to July 1926, and became general councillor of the Haute-Garonne for Carbonne canton three years later. His parliamentary activity included many bills and continuous opposition to the financial policies of the Poincaré, Herriot, Daladier, Doumergue, Tardieu and Laval governments.

In June 1936 Auriol joined Léon Blum's government as finance minister. He reformed monetary policy by devaluating the Poincaré franc and creating the floating franc. In 1937 he became justice minister in the Chautemps cabinet and, the following year, participated in the second Blum cabinet as minister without portfolio as the prime minister's chief of staff. After Germany defeated France in 1940, Auriol refused to vote for the delegation of full powers to Marshal Pétain on 10 July. Because of his opposition he was imprisoned in Pellevoisin and, later, Vals-les-bains, with Paul Raynaud, Georges Mandel and Marcel Dassault. Auriol was placed under house arrest in Muret between 1941 and 1942, joined the Resistance and reached Free France in Algiers in October 1943, when he became a member of the provisional consultative assembly at its first meeting. His wife, who had taken refuge in Lyon, helped to decipher coded messages from Allied headquarters. After the Liberation, Auriol represented France at the Bretton Woods conference because of his skills and position as chairman of the Constituent Assembly's foreign affairs committee. On 21 October 1945, Auriol was voted back into parliament as the representative of the Haute-Garonne. Later, he became mayor of Muret and general councillor again. He chaired the Socialists' parliamentary group and in November General de Gaulle asked him to join his cabinet as minister without portfolio in charge of relations wit the Assembly.

As chairman of the Constituent Assembly in January 1946, Auriol presided over the return of the National Assembly and the foundation of the Fourth Republic, which elected him as its head. He became president of the French Union on 16 January 1947. When Auriol's term ended in December 1953, he went back to local and family life. He travelled, wrote his memoirs and published two books, Hier, demain, le Journal du septennat (Yesterday, Tomorrow, the Journal of My Seven-Year Term) and Dix années d'administration socialiste (Ten Years of Socialist Administration). At a congress in Austria in December 1954, he was elected honorary president of the World Federation of Resistance Veterans and Medal Holders. He campaigned for General de Gaulle's return to power in May 1958 and became a member of the Constitutional Council in March 1959. Auriol was in total opposition with the secretary-general of the Socialist Party and resigned in February 1959. As an eminence grise of the Republic, he continued to participate in public life, above party quarrels. For his political and military commitment, Vincent Auriol received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and Grand Cross of the national orders of the 32 foreign states, the Rosette of the Resistance, the Cross of the Voluntary Resistance Fighter and honorary doctorate degrees from the universities of Columbia (New York), Laval (Québec), Oxford and Rio de Janeiro. Vincent Auriol died in Paris on 1st January 1966 in the aftermath of a broken hip suffered on his property in Labourdette.

Born in Argentina in 1900 to French parents, he moved to France following their accidental death. Already passionate about art and poetry, he went on to study at the Ecole Germain Pilon and later at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, in the Atelier Cormon. In the 1930s he moved to the Montparnasse district in Paris where he formed friendships with artists and writers such as Pierre-Albert Birot, André Derain, Jean Follain, Marie Laurencin and André Salmon. A realist painter of the French school, he painted and photographed figures, landscapes and still lifes.

The artist was particularly prolific during his five years in captivity in Stalag VII A in Moosburg, Bavaria. Sick and suffering from severe depression, he met the young sculptor Volti who helped him survive. In 1943, Volti returned to France with some of Alfred Gaspart’s drawings. That same year, his studio was bombed, destroying most of his artwork, but Gaspart's was saved and served as a testament to the panful years endured in the camps. In October 1944, under the pseudonym Timour, Alfred Gaspart was awarded first prize at the Concours de la Captivité organised by the YMCA in Geneva. Liberated in 1945, he became a recluse and never showed his work in public again despite persistent pleas from his friends and family and France’s National Federation of Prisoners of War. He continued to work away from the public eye. He died alone in 1993. The work accomplished by the artist is composed of 1,840 pieces (all techniques and sizes combined). The artworks are accompanied by diary entries (293 double-sided pages) that are a glimpse into how Alfred Gaspart lived, thought and suffered during his years in captivity. Correspondence between him and his sister Paule, his muse and his confidant, also provide a window into his life.

Son of François Queuille and Marie Masson de Saint-Félix, Henri was born into a bourgeois family in the provinces.

When his father, a chemist, died in 1895, the Queuilles moved to Tulle where the teenager attended the lycée starting in 1896. The young graduate studied medicine in Paris, where he made friends with Maurice Bedel and Georges Duhamel, before moving back to his home town in 1908. In 1910, he married Margueritte Gratadour de Sarrazin, with whom he had two children – Suzanne and Pierre. He rapidly rose in politics: member of the town council in 1912, mayor and general councillor of the Corrèze department the following year, and member of Parliament in 1914.

During the First World War, his service as a doctor with various ambulances on the Eastern Front earned him the Croix de Guerre 14-18.

A moderate member of the Radical Party, he entered the government of Alexandre Millerand in July 1920 as Undersecretary for Agriculture. Recognised by his peers, he held many ministerial portfolios (Agriculture, Health, Post, Public Works, Supplies), being appointed minister nineteen times between 1920 and 1940. He was the main driving force behind French agricultural policy between the wars (creation of rural engineering, creation and organisation of agricultural education, technical development of the countryside, etc.); he notably presided over the Fédération Nationale de la Mutualité et de la Coopération Agricole (National Federation of Reciprocity and Agricultural Cooperation).

He nationalised the railways and created the SNCF (French National Railway Company), and headed the Office National des Mutilés, Combattants, Victimes de Guerre et Pupilles de la Nation (1937). In 1939 he published Le Drame agricole: un aspect de la crise économique.

A staunch supporter of the Republic who worked with the Socialists, he became close with Edouard Herriot, but refused to vote to hand over full powers to Maréchal Philippe Pétain on 10 July 1940. He was then removed from his functions as mayor of Neuvic. His son Pierre’s membership in the Resistance made his contacts with Free France easier. Hettier de Boislambert convinced him to leave for the United Kingdom.

He reached London in April-May 1943, along with Astier de la Vigerie, Daniel Mayer and Jean-Pierre Levy, despite his distrust of de Gaulle. In May, he sent out a call to the French peasantry over the BBC, and was then appointed President of the landing commission in charge of developing the measures to be taken upon the Liberation of France. Two months later, the Vichy government issued a decree stripping Henri Queuille of his French nationality and his mandate as Senator. In August, he left for Algiers, where de Gaulle, bringing together the political parties, brought him into the Comité Français de Libération Nationale (CFLN - French Committee of National Liberation) in November 1943. Queuille asked to be relieved of his functions in September 1944, when the government moved to Paris, to return to his political career. He was elected mayor in October 1945, then member of Parliament in the legislative elections of 1946.

The war memoirs written by this recipient of the Médaille de la Résistance were published in Journal 1939/1945.

Loyal to Edouard Herriot, he headed the government of the 4^th Republic between July 1948 and June 1954. He was President of the Council (Premier) three times, curbing social unrest, the rise of Gaullism and government instability, applying a policy people called “immobilism”; he did not hesitate when it came to using force (October-November 1948) and postponing elections. But this policy enabled the Republic to survive.

His foreign policy activities led to the signature of a Franco-Vietnamese agreement in March 1949, practically recognising the colony’s independence, made France a member of the Atlantic Alliance and implemented the Marshall Plan the following month.

Defeated in the legislative elections of 1958, Henri Queuille returned to life in local politics. He transformed his town into a leisure resort, set up an agricultural high school and a technical school. Pursuing work on his memoirs that he had started in 1944, he gathered archives, documents, eye-witness accounts and objects from the Second World War and the Resistance, thus comprising the main collection of the Museum that bears his name.

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie die Augen vor Hunger leuchten und der Durst sie verblassen lässt

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie es ist, seine Mutter sterben zu sehen und keine Tränen zu haben

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie sehr man am Morgen sterben möchte, und am Abend nur noch Angst hat

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, dass ein Tag länger dauert als ein Jahr und eine Minute länger als ein ganzes Leben

O ihr, die ihr so viel wisst,

Wisst ihr, wie die Beine keinen Schmerz mehr empfinden, die Augen und Nerven immer schwerer werden und unsere Herzen schwerer sind als Stahl

Wisst ihr, dass die Pflastersteine nicht weinen, dass es keine Worte gibt für dieses Grauen, keine Worte für diese Angst

Wisst ihr, dass das Leiden und der Horror keine Grenzen kennen

Wisst ihr das

Ihr, die ihr alles wisst

Charlotte Delbo, aus Keiner von uns wird zurückkehren, Verlag Gonthier, 1965

Charlotte Delbo wird am 10. August 1913 in Vigneux-sur-Seine, in Seine-et-Oise, als Tochter von Charles Delbo, Maschinenbauer, und Erménie Morero geboren. Sie ist die älteste von vier Kindern.

Nach abgeschlossenem Abitur studiert sie Philosophie an der Sorbonne und schließt sich den jungen Kommunisten an. Dort lernt sie Georges Dudach kennen, den sie dann am 17. März 1936 heiratet. 1937 unterbricht sie ihr Studium und wird 1939 die Sekretärin des Comedian und Regisseurs Louis Jouvet. Im Mai 1941 begleitet sie die Truppe von Jouvet auf deren Tournee durch Südamerika. Ihr Ehemann bleibt in Frankreich und schließt sich dem kommunistischen Widerstand an.

Im September 1941 erfährt Charlotte in Buenos-Aires von der Hinrichtung ihres Freundes Jacques Woog, verurteilt wegen „kommunistischer Propaganda“. Voller Wut und bereit für den Widerstand, kehrt sie nach Frankreich zurück. In Paris tritt das Ehepaar dem Widerstand bei. Charlotte schreibt die Mitteilungen von Radio London und Radio Moskau mit und arbeitet für die von Jacques Decour gegründete französische Zeitschrift Les Lettres.

Am 2. März 1942 werden Charlotte und ihr Mann von fünf französischen Polizisten des Sonderkommandos verhaftet. Sie wird ins Gefängnis von Santé gebracht, wo sie am 23. Mai von der Hinrichtung Georges am Mont Valérien erfährt. Am 17. August wird sie in die Festung von Romainville verlegt, wo sie auf zahlreiche andere Frauen trifft, insbesondere Kommunistinnen. Eine Woche später wird sie nach Fresnes verlegt.

Sie ist eine von 230 Frauen, die Compiègne am 24. Januar 1943 in Richtung Auschwitz verlassen. Als diese Frauen am 27. Januar in Auschwitz ankommen, singen sie die Marseillaise. Die zunächst dem Block 14 der Frauen von Birkenau zugewiesenen Frauen, werden dann isoliert von den anderen zu schweren Arbeiten gezwungen, insbesondere in den Sümpfen. Viele von ihnen starben an Typhus. Am 3. August waren nur noch 57 von ihnen am Leben. Auch sie kommen unter Quarantäne. Am 7. Januar 1944 wird Charlotte Delbo mit sieben anderen Deportierten ins Lager Ravensbrück verlegt. Sie kommt nach Furstenberg, ein Arbeitskommando des Hauptlagers.

Die meisten der Überlebenden des Konvois wurden im Sommer 1944 nach Ravensbrück deportiert. Dank des Roten Kreuzes gelang es ihr mit anderen Frauen, das Lager am 23. April 1945 in Richtung Schweden zu verlassen und im Juni 1945 nach Frankreich zurückzukehren. Von den 230 Frauen des Transports vom 24. Januar 1943 haben 49 überlebt.

Nachdem sie in der Schweiz Fuß gefasst hatte, verfasste sie mit dem Buch „Keiner von uns wird zurückkehren“ ihr erstes literarisches Werk über die Deportation und die Transporte von Frankreich in Richtung Auschwitz. Das Buch wird erst im Jahr 1965 vom Gonthier Verlag veröffentlicht.

Nach Kriegsende arbeitet sie bei der UNO und dann im Französischen Zentrum für Wissenschaft. Sie stirbt im März 1985. Zuvor hatte sie zahlreiche Werke verfasst: Berichte über ihre Erfahrungen in den Konzentrationslagern und den Transport am 24. Januar (1965), Une connaissance inutile (1970), Mesure de nos jours (1971, Minuit-Verlag) und Qui rapportera ses paroles (1974, Verlag P.J. Oswald).

Georges Dudach:
_Zum Zum Gedächtnis der erschossenen Männer von Mont-Valérien 1939−1945

Name: Dudach. Familienname. Vornamen: Georges Paul. Geburtsdatum 18.09.1914. Geburtsort: Saint Maur des Fossés. Département des Geburtsorts: Seine. Geburtsland: Frankreich. Beruf: Journalist. Wohnort: Paris 16. Département Wohnort: Seine. Land des Wohnsitzes: Frankreich. Ort der Inhaftierung. Anklage: Geiselnahme. Prozessdatum. Ort der Hinrichtung: Mont Valérien. Datum der Hinrichtung: 23.05.1942.

Wilhelm Keitel joins the army in 1901 and holds several posts during the First World War, serving primarily as an officer in the General Staff. After Germany falls in 1918, he pursues his military career at the heart of the new German army, the Reichswehr, as it was authorized by the Treaty of Versailles.

When Adolf Hitler came into power in 1933 and started rebuilding the armed forces, Wilhelm Keitel's career began to rapidly progress. He was named a brigadier in 1934 and the following year became chief of the War Cabinet and the director of the Wehrmachtsamt, in charge of the coordination of the armed forces. In 1938, Wilhelm Keitel became chief of the newly-created Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW - Armed Forces High Command). On 22 June 1940, he signed the Franco-German armistice at Rethondes. This zealous executor of Adolf Hitler's orders was named chief of the OKW -- the Armed Forces High Command -- in 1938, and during the war authorized all Hitler's military decisions as well as the terror tactics he employed in countries taken by the Germans, most notably the execution of hostages and NN (Night and Fog) prisoners. He was promoted to Marshal in July 1940. Despite several attempts on the part of the leading circles of the army and the General Staff to shake up the top of the military hierarchy, he kept his positions until the end of the Second World War. On 9 May 1945, he signed the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht on the orders of Grand Admiral Doentiz. In 1946, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg condemned him to death for Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes against Humanity.

Adolphe Félix Eboué was born on 26th December 1884 at Cayenne (in Guiana), fourth in a black family of 5 children. His father - originally a gold-washer - ran a grocery from 1898 onwards with his wife. In 1901 he received a limited scholarship to continue his education in Bordeaux. Achieving his baccalaureat in 1905, he attended the colonial school in Paris from where he graduated in 1908. Very quickly he became attracted to black Africa and its civilisations from which he derived his Creole status. He thus became interested in the administration of the African colonies, and in 1909 he was appointed Chief Administrator in Oubangui-Chari (now the Central African Republic) where western influence was not yet complete. He remained in the post until 1933, frequently returning to Guiana to spend his leave. There he married Eugénie Tell in 1921. In Black Africa, Félix Eboué developed his own brand of colonial policy, attempting to reconcile modernisation of material life, whilst maintaining African culture. This explained his support for the production of new crops such as cotton and the development of road and rail infrastructure. At the same time he fought to preserve food crops, learned local languages and extended his research into traditions...

A supporter of the association - and not assimilation - of colonised peoples, he frequently clashed with his superiors who were unimpressed with his membership, in 1928, of the Ligue des droits de l'homme (Human Rights League). In fact, Félix Eboué wanted to strike the delicate balance of being both a strict colonial administrator and an uncompromising humanitarian. In 1934, he moved to French Sudan (now Mali). With the support of the black élites, he strove to develop the banks of the Sudan and encouraged the nomadic peoples to adopt a sedentary lifestyle cultivating the land. In between times, in 1932 and 1933, he was Secretary-General of Martinique, where he sought to develop the island and improve conditions for the worst off and reduce antagonism between White, Mixed Race and Black peoples.

Recalled from Sudan, he was given responsibility in 1936, for applying the policy of the Front Populaire in Guadeloupe. Finding this divided island in crisis, he opened negotiations and introduced a plan to provide credit-assistance, professional training, the building of housing, and to clean up public finances. On 4th January 1939, he was appointed Governor of Chad, a new and newly-pacified colony. Aware of the country's strategic importance, with the Italian threat in the region becoming clearer, he began major infrastructural development. On 6th June 1940, news of the defeat of the French army and the armistice reached Fort-Lamy. General de Gaulle's appeal several days later was also heard. In Brazzaville, after initial hesitation, Boisson, the Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa, pledged allegiance to Marshall Pétain. On 29th June, Eboué, who viewed the armistice as depriving his motherland of the values that he had always defended, cabled his determination not to implement its terms. Although its geographical isolation put it in a difficult position, Chad remained in a state of war. On 16th July, a telegram from General de Gaulle gave him the support of the leader of Free France, whose emissaries arrived on 24th August. On 26th, a proclamation declared Chad's alliance with Free France. Cameroon and Congo followed its example: Eboué had given the signal for African dissidence, providing outstanding support to the cause of the France that was still fighting.

Relieved of his post and condemned to death in absentia by the Vichy Government, Félix Eboué was appointed Governor-General of French Equatorial Africa on 13th November by General de Gaulle, and the seat of the Council for the Defence of the Empire. Chad became the base for French people re-entering the fighting: it was from here that Leclerc launched his legendary raid on Koufra in March 1942, and the F.F.L. (Free French Forces) attacked the Italians at Fezzan, then in Tripolitania. At the same time as providing supplies to these troops, organising a wartime economy and rebuilding trade, Eboué sought to bring civil peace to French Equatorial Africa, easing the tensions raised in 1940 between Gaullists and supporters of Pétain. At the same time, he was convinced that French rule could not be maintained in Black Africa in the long term without a profound reform of colonial policy.

This was the tone of his circular of 8th November 1941, promoting the observance of customary law, the association of African Councils of Administration, training for native top civil servants, the extension of contracts of employment, etc. In July 1942, General de Gaulle signed three decrees in a similar vein. On 30th January 1944, the leader of Free France opened a conference on the future of French African Territories in Brazzaville. Tackling topics dear to Eboué, such as native involvement in administration and the redistribution of regions according to ethnic affiliations, the conference's recommendations left him unsatisfied as they rejected any long-term autonomy, instead suggesting elected representation of the African Territories. Tired, Eboué took some leave and left in 1944 with his family - who joined him from France in 1942 - in Egypt. He used this opportunity to work on diplomatic relations between Egypt and the provisional government of the French Republic. On 17th May 1944, he died after suffering a pulmonary embolism. On 19th May 1949, Félix Eboué's ashes were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris. At the ceremony, Gaston Monnerville, President of the Senate, recalled that "it was a message of humanity that guided Félix Eboué, and all those of us who fought in the Resistance overseas, at a time when brutish fanaticism threatened to extinguish the light of the spirit, and where freedom was at risk of falling like France." Félix Eboué's memory is today honoured through several monuments and commemorative plaques. Furthermore, in Paris, a Metro station is named after him and Daumesnil.