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

Musée de la Résistance en Bretagne

Les Hardys Behelec - 56140 Saint-Marcel

Tel.: +33 (0)2 97 75 16 90

Contact form

Its sizeable collection brings visitors into close contact with history.

Large numbers of objects, archive documents, materials, photographs and weaponry are displayed in three rooms: Occupation, Resistance, and Liberation and Remembrance.

Midway through the visit, a digital portrait from the Morvan “Digital Gallery” plunges visitors into the world of the maquis rural resistance groups.

The Occupation

The first room, on the Occupation, looks at patriotic feeling and the defence of Morvan from 1940, followed by the impact of the German Occupation: occupied towns and villages, restrictions on freedoms, rationing, requisitioning, Nazi repression, and so on.

The Resistance

In the face of German and Vichyist propaganda, the Resistance organised itself, with underground newspapers and pamphlets, brave acts by local personalities, etc.

This second room presents the first acts of resistance through to the formation of the maquis, through a variety of materials, photographs, weapons and clothing, and the assistance provided by the Allies (parachute drops, containers, letters, mannequins, etc.).

Liberation and Remembrance

Morvan played a strategic role in the liberation of the region.

The maquis liberated Morvan in September 1944, through acts of sabotage, fighting and pitched battles, represented here by photos, reconstructions and objects.

The visit ends with a look at remembrance and the philosophy of the Resistance, through photographs of expressions of remembrance, steles and monuments (poems, texts, letters, etc.).

Digital Gallery

“The Morvan Maquis” is a new digital portrait from Morvan’s “Digital Gallery”.

Situated at midway point in the permanent exhibition, “The Morvan Maquis” is an immersive projection space presenting daily life in the maquis.

In this space, a film is shown on two screens: one shows documents directly related to maquis life, while the other places events in the national and international context of the war.

The installation immerses the visitor in the world of the Morvan maquis, showing how they were organised on a day-to-day basis, and examining their actions, their camps, the roles played by their leaders, and the hunger, fear and courage involved.

From personal stories to major historical events, the portrait focuses on the people, both men and women, involved in these maquis groups, who ultimately played a key role in the liberation of France.

Educational activities

The museum makes an excellent contribution to curriculum requirements in history, history of art and civic education for schools and colleges. It offers students and teachers a practical approach to various themes specific to the Second World War, as well as the concepts of human rights, freedom, political engagement, tolerance and solidarity. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on the values of the French Republic and the founding principles of European unity.

Finally, it offers students a practical insight into civic engagement.

Exhibitions, conferences, film screenings, national events (European Heritage Days, European Museum Night, etc.), ceremonies and more

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Educational offering (workshops, tailored visits, learning resources, etc.)

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Source : ©Musée de la Résistance en Morvan

Four permanent displays and a temporary exhibition at the Mémorial de Caen give visitors a broad understanding of 20th century history.

Permanent spaces:

• Berlin at the heart of the Cold War
• Taches d'Opinions – Global current affairs through press cartoons
• World War, Total War
• The Normandy Landings and the Battle of Normandy

The Mémorial de Caen offers visitors a comprehensive multi-language audioguide service in addition to its guided tours.

The Mémorial de Caen

Esplanade Eisenhower B.P. 55026 - 14050 Caen Cedex 4

Tél : +33 (0)2 31 06 06 45

Fax : +33 (0)2 31 06 01 66

Email : contact@memorial-caen.fr

Opening times

 Prices

Site of the Caen Musée de la Paix memorial

Memory of Normandy

Site of the Calvados tourist board

Website of Normandy's regional tourist committee

The Musée de la Grande Guerre was officially opened on 11 November 2011 by the Pays de Meaux combined area council. The furthest point of the German advance and the site of the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914, Meaux and its neighbouring communes possess historic heritage which, until then, had been undervalued and was little known to the general public, since the Great War is not generally associated with the Île-de-France region. First off, then, the museum serves as a reminder that the front came right up to the edge of Paris, and that the “miracle of the Marne”, just one month after the outbreak of hostilities, was the victory that was to decide the course of the conflict. Besides its historical legitimacy, the museum, like any major structure, plays the role of a lever of development for the region. It contributes to shaping a new image while mobilising different actors around a shared project that can benefit everyone, both in terms of culture and tourism and in terms of networks.

Origins

The Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux has its origins in a meeting between Jean-Pierre Verney, a passionate, self-taught historian who, over more than 45 years, collected 50 000 objects and documents on the First World War – one of the largest private collections in Europe – and Jean-François Copé, chairman of the Pays de Meaux combined area council. Copé took the decision to buy the collection in 2005 and founded a museum on the First World War, at a time when Verney was preparing to sell overseas, having found no local authority willing to take it. It was an obvious choice, given the sheer scale of the Pays de Meaux area (18 communes with a total population of 85 000) and the fact that a number of its villages still bear visible traces of the Battle of the Marne (memorials, cemeteries, etc.), including the grave of French poet Charles Péguy, killed on 5 September 1914.

A museum on a human scale

From the outset, the Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux was intended to be for all visitors. Its bold design and contemporary layout, at once educational, sensitive and immersive, contribute to making it as accessible as possible.  This proximity to visitors can be explained in part by the desire to approach the conflict from a human perspective, through the everyday lives not only of the soldiers, but of women and children, continually switching between the front and the home front. All the nations that took part in the war are represented here, namely through the collection of uniforms, the overall intention being to present the universality of suffering and violence, whatever side of no man’s land your camp happens to be on

The object at the heart of the display

The exhibition is deliberately open and unconstrained, in order to allow each visitor to choose their own route, and thus build their own history. The main display, which presents the First Battle of the Marne (1914) alongside the Second Battle of the Marne (1918), clearly presents to visitors the passage from the 19th to the 20th century. Between these two key mobile battles at the beginning and end of the war, the presentation of the static war with its front comprised of trenches offers an insight into the notion of stalemate. Laid out in the main body of the museum, here is where the big hardware (lorries, aircraft, tanks, artillery pieces, etc.) is on show, making the museum a unique place where visitors can see the full range of objects and documents bearing witness to the conflict. This main display is complemented by a themed display: eight spaces look at topics that cut across the conflict (A New War, Bodies and Suffering, Globalisation, A Mobilised Society, etc.), adding new ways into the subject. The presentation is different for each of the spaces, thereby breaking up the monotony of the experience, as each new setting renews visitors’ interest. Obviously, the objects in the collection are at the heart of the display: they lend and take on meaning in their relationship with the space and in the dialogue they establish with the museum resources, and ultimately move visitors to ask questions about their own memories. By arousing interest and curiosity, the museum encourages visitors to interrogate their own personal history.

An innovative interaction

If visitors are greeted by ambient sounds even before they set foot in the museum, once inside, they find a whole series of objects to touch in the displays. Known as “martyr objects”, they belong to the collections and offer the public an opportunity to handle materials and shapes. There is also a wealth of interactive tools that aim to put the visitor in the driving seat: wearing special glasses to experience 3D stereoscopic views, feeling the weight of soldiers’ kit bags or coils of barbed wire, guessing what objects are in the archaeological niches, educational games to grasp the economic impact of the war or discover the different belligerent nations, interactive terminals to offer a deeper insight into the collection. All of this makes for an attractive and dynamic visitor experience, involving the different senses, thereby aiding the immersion in what is a complex subject.

The Musée de la Grande Guerre du Pays de Meaux is today an essential site for discovering the history of the First World War, and the area has become a remembrance tourism destination. The years of the centenary commemorations contributed to that process, which is sure to continue as the museum celebrates its tenth anniversary with a special season in 2021-22.

Sources : © Musée de la Grande Guerre

Arras and the First World War (1914-18)

Arras was at the centre of battle throughout the First World War. After falling into German hands in 1914 and then taken back by the French, it was defended by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from spring 1916. Almost razed to the ground, the town had become an underground city organised into a maze of galleries several kilometres long (known as boves) that were used during the great offensive of 1917. At the start of April, at dawn, some 20,000 British soldiers emerged in the surrounding German trenches to the complete surprise of the enemy, managing to seize officers as they were having breakfast.

For the Commonwealth forces, this was an absolute massacre: 159,000 men lost in 39 days, or the equivalent of 4,076 deaths every day. While notching up the biggest death toll, this offensive was nevertheless a significant military victory, perhaps the only one achieved by the Allies in 1917. In 1918, the Germans attempted, in vein, to recapture Arras.

Within the walls of the cemetery, all men are equal. The memorials were created in this spirit, with soldiers and officers lying side by side. The Cross of Sacrifice symbolises the faith of the majority (Christian) whole the Steele Memorial was built in honour of the men of other faiths and atheists.

Used from March 1916 by the British forces, the cemetery was enlarged after the Armistice by the graves repatriated from the battlefield and two small cemeteries nearby. It is the site of 2,651 burial places of Commonwealth soldiers who fought in World War I. A further 30 graves hold men of other nationalities, mainly German. Seven graves date back to the Second World War, when Arras served as the headquarters of British troops until the town was evacuated on 23 May 1940. In German hands at the time, it was taken back by the Allies on 1 September 1944.

For those with no known grave

The cemetery features a memorial that pays tribute to the more than 35,000 missing soldiers whose bodies were never found. These men fought in terrible conditions, against the deadliest weapons of war the world had ever known. Sent from the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand, they fell in the Arras region between spring 1916 and 7 August 1918, the eve of the March to Victory. The Canadian and Australian soldiers killed during this period are commemorated by the memorials in Vimy and Villers-Bretonneux. A specific memorial honours the men who fell during the Battle of Cambrai in 1917.

The Flying Services Memorial bears the names of around 1,000 men from the Royal Naval Air Service, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force (following the merger of the RNAS and the RFC in April 1918) who were shot down on the Western Front and have no known graves. For the pilots involved in the Battle of Arras, April 1917 was dubbed Bloody April and life expectancy fell to three weeks at 5.30 p.m. Fiercely efficient, the German airforce decimated the RFC forces by a third in just one month.

Faubourg d'Amiens Military Cemetery

Boulevard du général de Gaulle 62000, Arras

Office de tourisme d'Arras

Last February a memorial was opened on the site of the former Royallieu internment camp. As place of history, it is a reminder of events, setting them within the context of the Second World War and the Nazi policies of repression and extermination. As a place of remembrance, it pays homage to all those who were detained there before being deported to Germany and Poland or shot as hostages. In 1939, the Royallieu barracks near Compiègne in the Oise département was used as a military hospital before being converted by the Germans in June 1940 into a camp where they brought French and British prisoners of war.

In 1941, they turned it into a " permanent concentration camp for active enemy individuals" under the official name of Frontstalag 122, which became a "German police detention camp" by virtue of decree on the 30th December 1941. Resistance fighters, political and unionist militants, Jews, civilians arrested in raids and foreigners etc. - more than 45,000 of them would pass through there before being deported to Nazi concentration and extermination camps. "I got out of the last departure and really hope not to be in on the next one. I am here with some really nice, good people: communists, Gaullists, royalists, priests, aristocrats and country folk - it's an extraordinary mixture", the poet Robert Desnos, who was interned on the 20th March 1944, wrote to his girlfriend. A short respite. A death train took him away on the 27th April to Flöha en Saxe and he was to succumb to typhoid on the 8th June 1945 at Terezin. It was from the camp at Royallieu that the very first deportation train was to leave French soil on the 27th March 1942. It took over a thousand Jews to Auschwitz, as did the next one on the 5th June. A third convoy, consisting mostly of communist and unionist hostages, left Compiègne on the 6th July. Royallieu was thus to become a transit camp for detainees, for the most part political and resistance fighters, prior to their deportation.
A place for remembering Research carried out by the Remembrance of the Deportation Foundation at the History Department of the Ministry of Defence's archive office for victims of contemporary conflicts has allowed the identification of the departure of twenty-six large convoys, in addition to a dozen small convoys between 1942 and 1944. Including the first two convoys of deported Jews, this makes a total of forty convoys. Since the camp also served as a place for detaining hostages, other internees were shot in the surrounding forests once reprisal measures had been agreed. It is to all these people that the internment and deportation memorial is dedicated. This has just been built on part of the former camp by the town of Compiègne in partnership with the Remembrance of the Deportation Foundation, the Defence Department (Directorate of Memory, Heritage and Archives, SGA/DMPA), the Regional Council of Picardy, the General Council of the Oise, the Heritage Foundation and the Caisse des dépôts et consignations (a government body in charge of investing and lending public money). The historian and filmmaker Christian Delage created the journey through history. The architect and scenographer Jean-Jacques Raynaud designed the setting. The result is solemn, due as much to the materials used - glass, concrete and stone - as to the way the floors and walls in the three preserved buildings that remain out of the original twenty-five have been stripped back to their initial condition, and the use of sounds and images to set the scene. Opposite the entrance stands a wall to guide visitors towards the reception hall. Made up of a series of glass pillars bearing the names of all the deportees and internees of the camp at Royallieu identified to date, its purpose is to give the internees back their identities. It is through these names that visitors are introduced to the site. Around the buildings is what is today a garden of remembrance, as well as an exhibition area: plans of the internment camp, group photographs of the guards and written and recorded accounts accompany visitors as they retrace the history of the site.
The memorial provides two routes that are complementary to and inseparable from each other. One of them, the result of the hard work of historians, puts the history of the camp in context; the other encourages visitors to follow their own personal remembrance trail. The history is mapped out along a frieze running the length of the walls of the ten halls that form the tour. It covers in succession: the historic context, internment and the daily life of the camp, transportation on the deportation trains and forced labour and death in the Nazi camps. Documents and archive films illustrate the descriptions. Letters, photographs, drawings and recorded eyewitness accounts tell of life at Royallieu. In places, the images projected onto the walls and floors dominate the whole room. The remembrance trails themselves are an opportunity to meet the many witnesses, who tell of how they survived their passage through this transit camp. These accounts, in several different voices, demonstrate the wide diversity in the backgrounds of the detainees, their opinions and the conditions in which they were held. These men and women are constantly present: their names, their faces, their words and their written accounts remain with the visitor. The buildings are both exhibition halls and "exhibits" at the same time. The walls, floors and ceilings are all in their original condition: the tiles and lino have been removed, to reveal the original rough concrete that internees would have trodden; the false ceilings from the 1970's have been taken down to show the barracks' plastered ceilings; recent paint work has been scraped off to reveal the different layers of materials, colours and decoration beneath.
The words of witnesses The memorial provides many and varied sound recordings. Chosen carefully, some of them contribute in setting the scene. Broadcast all around the place, they are triggered automatically as they detect visitors' movement. Others are transmitted by an audio-guide, available to every visitor. In this way everyone can follow his own audio route, in his own language and at his own speed. The audio-guide can also be used to develop tours for specific groups - young children or the partially sighted - and themed tours etc. The words of the witnesses resonate around the place. They resound off the metal and wooden chairs in the garden and leap out at you as you pass through the corridors of the buildings. It is these different accounts, organised by theme, such as arrival at the camp, daily and social life, ways of surviving, solidarity, loneliness, leaving for Germany etc., that best tell the history of the camp. These sound montages have been created from documents in the huge audio-visual collection built up by the Remembrance of the Deportation Foundation and from new accounts recorded especially for the memorial. At times, the scenography calls on the emotions in a personal way, encouraging visitors to attune their feelings with those of the place itself and to remember rather then to discover. This is why, for example, on the floor in the barracks the positions where the beds would have been are marked using a single line to draw their outlines, extending up the walls to indicate bunk beds. The resulting impression of being cramped together is immediately apparent. In the same spirit, pictures of men and women are projected onto the walls very slowly, one after the other. Letters sent by prisoners to their families have been collected in two virtual albums that are projected onto two table screens, whilst at the same time being read aloud by actors. The tour ends in a room dedicated to the history of deportation, genocide and the punishment of criminals.
The contribution of the Defence Department Through the general administration department's Directorate of Memory, Heritage and Archives, the deputy minister for ex-servicemen awarded a grant of two million Euros spread over 2005 and 2006, as a contribution to the creation of this place of remembrance. In addition, the Defence Department, now the owner of the site of the former barracks at Royallieu, transferred the management of two hectares of land to the town of Compiègne and it is on this land that the Internment and Deportation Memorial was built.
Internment and Deportation Memorial Camp de Royallieu 2 bis, rue des Martyrs de la liberté 60200 Compiègne Tel. 03 44 96 37 00 E-mail: memorial@compiegne.fr

The Battle of Arras Memorial was opened to the public on 1 March 2008. Erected in the former Wellington Quarry, it commemorates the Allied Engagement and the role this location played in the planning of the British offensive of April 1917 in Arras.

In spring 1917, the French General Nivelle, while preparing the Chemin des Dames offensive, requested that the commander of the British troops launch a diversion attack in the sector of Arras.

The main difficulty with this operation was gathering the troops in large numbers without attracting the enemy’s attention. The New Zealand fire brigade were commanded to dig tunnels beneath the enemy trenches in order to link together the old quarries used by stonecutters in the 15^th and 16^th centuries and create a huge underground network stretching 20 kilometres. It allowed the British troops to come out from nowhere, on the morning of 9 April, a few metres from the German front line.

This underground network was the biggest of its kind ever constructed by the British troops. The other purpose of these passages was to meet the basic needs of the 24,000 men billeted there prior to combat, the quarries providing a high level of security despite its close proximity to the Front with kitchens, showers and latrines installed as well as a military hospital. To facilitate their movements around the tunnels, the New Zealand and British troops named the quarries after towns and cities from their homelands. The main quarry was named Wellington.

A recent research programme carried out on these quarries by Arras’ archaeological department unearthed many traces of their former French and British occupants, the soldiers who lived and fought here during the war. In light of the interest these new-found testimonials hold in helping us to understand the everyday lives of the soldiers, a thorough inventory of the passages was made in the Wellington Quarry.

The town of Arras took the initiative to build this memorial, part funded by the Regional Council, the French Ministry of Regional Planning, the Urban Community, the General Council and the Ministry of Defence.

This place of remembrance comprises a remembrance garden and a wall dedicated to the British regiments who fought in this battle engraved with the names of all the soldiers. Documents about Arras dating back to the Great War are displayed in the half-buried reception hall.

Over 75 minutes, the tour pays tribute to the engagement of the Allied troops around Arras, focusing more on the soldiers’ everyday lives than the war itself. The quarry is open to groups of up to 17 people led by a tour guide. A glass lift takes the group 20 metres below ground to visit the 350 metres of tunnels that have been renovated.

This strategic network also housed the living quarters of thousands of soldiers billeted below ground. Drawings and graffiti, bas reliefs, crosses and other features can be seen on the walls, along with traces left behind by the soldiers such as helmets and rusted tins of food.

Each visitor is given an audio-guide that describes 10 sequences illustrated by visual projections and light shows on the surrounding walls: the discovery of the underground world; the traces left by the working quarry in the Middle Ages; the tunnel of history (the quarries up to 1916); the objectives of this unique military strategy in the context of the war; the tunnelling operation in 1916 and 1917; daily life in the quarries in April 1917; the construction of the network, and the Battle of Arras in April 1917. To conclude, a film about the Battle of Arras, based on archives from the Imperial War Museum, is shown in a room at the end of the tour. The memorial hopes to welcome 60,000 visitors a year.

Wellington Quarry

Rue Delétoile 62000 Arras

Tel: +(0)3 21 51 26 95

Office de tourisme d'Arras

Carrière Wellington