Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de Picardie

The Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de Picardie (Museum of Resistance and Deportation in Picardie) in Tergnier presents the history of resistance and deportation in the region during the First and Second World Wars. The museum presents the region’s wartime experiences through three permanent exhibitions on the Second World War:

• ‘From the March to War to Resistance’: The origins of the war and the events before, during, and following the Battle of France. 
• ‘Deportation’: Discussing internment and deportation in Tergnier, Picardie, and France from 1940 to 1944.  
• ‘Victory’: Covering the Normandy Landings, the invasion of France, and the region’s liberation.

This material is joined by two to three rotating temporary exhibitions, including:

• ‘Destruction / Reconstruction’: A comparison of wartime destruction and postwar urban and rural reconstruction in the region, and a look at both physical and social rebuilding amid ruins.
•  ‘The Americans in the Two World Wars’: American involvement in France in the First and Second World Wars, and American impacts on the region.
•  ‘The Righteous Among the Nations of Aisne’: The thirty-three individuals recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in Aisne, the department which includes Tergnier, and their role in the experiences of French Jews during the Holocaust.   
• ‘Women in the Two World Wars’: The role of women in the world wars, the impacts of war upon women, and the wartime evolution of women’s’ rights, liberty, and social standing.
• ‘Resistance in the Two World Wars’: The French Resistance during the Second World War, the idea of resistance against an occupying power, and the roots of key figures including de Gaulle, Jean Moulin, Churchill, and Pétain in the First World War.
• ‘Aviation in the Great War’: The history of French aerial warfare, and French successes with early aviation from 1914 to 1918.

The Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de Picardie occupies a building on the Place Carnegie, a central square named after American industrialist Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie Endowment Trust’s funding of urban reconstruction in France following the First World War. In addition to the museum itself, museum guides are available to accompany visitors with vehicles on driven tours around the region’s ‘Ways of Memory’ connecting notable wartime landmarks.