Museum

The Centre d’Interprétation de la Ligne de Démarcation (Interpretive Centre on the Demarcation Line) in Génelard describes itself as “the first institution in France” dedicated to specifically presenting the history of the French Demarcation Line which from June 22, 1940 to November 11, 1942 divided metropolitan France into the Occupied and Free Zones.

The Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation de Forges-les-Eaux (Forges-les-Eaux Museum of Resistance and Deportation) presents the history of resistance and deportation in the town and region during the Second World War.

Collections include military and civilian objects are assembled from both large private collections and individual donations and are presented in two major exhibition spaces, one on each floor of the two-story building. The ground floor space presents war, occupation, and resistance, and displays items including:

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:

The Mémorial de la Shoah de Drancy (Drancy Shoah Memorial) is located at the site of the former Camp de Drancy, a major internment, transit, and deportation site chiefly for Jewish peoples and operated by French and later German SS authorities from 1941 to 1944. Established in a large residential building built between 1931 and 1934 and designed as a modernist, urban living space with the name ‘Cité de la Muette’ (‘The Silent City’), the camp functioned as the most important transit point for French and foreign Jews taken in roundups and sent to death camps, usually Auschwitz.

The Musée de la Seconde Guerre Mondiale (Museum of the Second World War) in Digne-les-Bains is a converted bomb shelter dug prior to the outbreak of the Second World War, under the supervision of the Union Nationale pour la Défense Aérienne et pour la Protection des Populations Civiles (Natioal Union for Air Defense and the Protection of Civilian Populations) or the Defense Passive.

The Mémorial du 19 Août 1942 (Memorial August 19, 1942) commemorates the failed Anglo-Canadian raid on the German-occupied coastal town of Dieppe, and the loss of life that occurred there on August 19, 1942. Codenamed Operation Jubilee, the raid involved the participation of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division led by Major General J.H. Roberts.

The Big Red One Assault Museum commemorates and records the actions of the United States’ 1st Infantry Division in the Battle of Normandy, following its landing at nearby Omaha Beach in 1944. The 1st Infantry Division, known as ‘Big Red One’ in reference to its large, red numeral ‘1’ combat service identification badge or shoulder patch, is a longstanding infantry unit organized in 1917 for service in France in response to American participation in the First World War.

The Mémorial de la Résistance en Vercors (Memorial of Resistance in Vercors) commemorates the actions and the fallen of the French Resistance, notably the Maquis, in the region of the Vercors Massif during the Second World War. A geographically imposing and fairly remote plateau populated by scattered villages, the Vercors Massif provided an opportunity for members of the French Resistance to evade German and Vichy authorities and to organize unmolested.