Musée de la Résistance de Bondues

The Musée de la Résistance de Bondues (Bondues Museum of Resistance) is located within Fort Lobau, part of a series of military fortifications conceived following the Franco-Prussian War; construction was begun in 1878, and completed in 1884. Following German occupation of France during the Second World War, the fort was employed as a munitions depot and as housing for officers serving at the nearby Bondues air base. Later, the fort held captured members of the French Resistance: from March 1943 to May 1944, 68 were executed by firing squad. Occupied by the military after the war, Fort Lobau was acquired by the Commune de Bondues in 1962. In 1965, a memorial was dedicated at Fort Lobau to the 68 resistance members; in 1997, the Musée de la Résistance de Bondues was opened. 

The museum itself describes the history of resistance in Bondues and the surrounding Nord-Pas-de-Calais region during the Second World War. A permanent exhibition presents the motivations for, logistics involved in, and dangers of resistance, and includes records and photographs as evidence of individual or collective acts of resistance. Local and regional resistance is described in detail, and situated within the context of national resistance against both occupation and the Vichy Regime. In addition to this, annual temporary exhibitions highlight specific themes or cases of resistance.