Resistance and Deportation History Centre

Centre d´Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation

The Resistance and Deportation History Centre in Lyon fulfils a dual mission: on the one hand, it works to preserve the remembrance of the Holocaust and provides information and educational offers to the general public; on the other hand, it houses archives and collections. It is located in the building of the former school for military doctors, which was used by the Gestapo as its headquarters during the German occupation.

History

After France’s defeat against the German Wehrmacht and the signing of the armistice in June 1940, France was divided into two zones: the »zone occupée« (»occupied zone«) in the north and the unoccupied »zone libre« (»free zone«) in the south, which was administered by the Vichy regime. As a major city located close to the demarcation line in the »zone libre«, Lyon became a centre of the Résistance from the summer of 1940 onwards: two of the most important French resistance movements, Combat and Franc-Tireur, were founded in Lyon in 1941, and other resistance groups were also active in the city. In November 1942, however, France’s entire territory was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, which led to a drastic worsening of the situation in Lyon. Repression by the German Gestapo and the French Milice intensified, and key figures of the Résistance such as Jean Moulin and Marc Bloch were arrested in Lyon and died a violent death in custody. Nevertheless, resistance in and around Lyon remained strong until the end of the German occupation.

At the same time, the persecution of Jews residing in and around Lyon intensified. Numerous raids were carried out from August 1942 onwards. SS-Obersturmführer Klaus Barbie (1913-1991) played a key role in this, as he had been stationed in Lyon as the head of the Gestapo from November 1942 onwards and acted with extreme brutality. Among other things, he was responsible for the raid on Rue Sainte-Catherine in Lyon on 9th February 1943. He also orchestrated the deportation of Jewish children from the village of Izieu, not far from Lyon, which went down in history as one of the worst crimes of the Holocaust in France.

Paris, 1937, Jean Moulin (1899–1943), unifier of the French resistance movements, Ministère de la Culture - Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Studio Harcourt, public domain

Victims

A total of 6,100 Jewish children, women and men from the Rhône-Alpes region were deported to German concentration and extermination camps, including 1,995 from Lyon. Of the 11,458 Jewish children deported from France, 395 children who were born in Lyon, lived there or were deported from there have been identified to date.

The victims also included political opponents and resistance fighters. While there are no precise figures for the Rhône-Alpes region, the number of victims in the case of the »maquis du Vercors« (resistance group in the Vercors mountains) alone is estimated to range from 623 to 800 dead. Between 1940 and 1944, across France’s entire territory, more than 60,300 persons who had engaged in political resistance were deported to German prisons and concentration camps. At least 42 percent of them lost their lives.

With the defeat of the French army in June 1940 the country came under German control. Northern France was governed by the German military administration, whilst the south was initially unoccupied. A government under German influence was established in the spa town of Vichy in the south of France. At the beginning of the Second World War, there were around 300,000 Jews living in France. The exact number is not known as there were no records of religious affiliation in France. The first anti-Jewish laws were passed in northern France at the end of 1940. The Jews were forced to register with the authorities, excluded from society and stripped of their possessions. These policies were followed by systematic arrests by the French police. Jews without a French passport were the main targets of the German SS and police as well as the French authorities. In an attempt to deter growing French resistance, the German military commander General Otto von Stülpnagel (1878–1948) started to have those not involved in the resistance shot and to have Jews in particular arrested. Those arrested were among the first to be deported to the death camps in occupied Poland from March 1942 onwards. A total of 75,000 people were deported to their deaths in the course of over seventy deportation operations. Most of the French Jews survived, mainly in hiding in the south of the country. Around 600,000 people died in France as a result of war and persecution, including 270,000 civilians. There continues to be little distinction drawn between the different groups of victims. However, since the late 1980s there has been increased research into the murder of patients of care homes and clinics. It is now estimated that around 50,000 people fell victim to these operations. Both northern and southern France experienced persecution, collaboration and resistance during the occupation. After the war, remembrance of both the campaign of the »Résistance« as an expression of French patriotism and the suffering associated with the »Déportation« provided a way of bridging the differences between the Gaullist conservatives and the Communists affiliated with Moscow. Consequently, many museums and memorial sites are dedicated to the resistance or remember the deportations, for example the »Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation« (Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation) in Paris, inaugurated in 1956, and the »Centre Européen du Résistant Déporté« (European Centre for Deported Resistance Fighters), which opened in 2005 at the memorial site at the former Natzweiler concentration camp. Since the early 1990s a number of sites of memory have been established, such as the Maison d’Izieu (Izieu Home) memorial near Lyon, which remembers the deportation of 44 Jewish children, the national memorial site at the former camp at Gurs as well as a memorial centre in Oradour sur Glane – a village destroyed by the SS in 1944. The central memorial site dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust is the »Mémorial de la Shoah« in the centre of Paris, which was opened in 2005. French presidents have since then acknowledged shared French responsibility for the Holocaust in France. The memorial site in Caen,commemorating the Normandy landings of 1944, was opened in 1988 and extended in 2002, is the most-visited memorial site outside Paris. The annual national commemorations marking the victory over Nazi Germany take place here. In addition, there are numerous regional museums in France, where the exhibitions focus on the themes of persecution, resistance and deportation.

Remembrance

The events and crimes committed during the German occupation gained international attention when Serge and Beate Klarsfeld tracked down Klaus Barbie, the former head of the Gestapo in Lyon, in Bolivia in 1983. After a trial that was followed worldwide, Barbie was sentenced to life imprisonment in Lyon in 1987 and died in custody in 1991.

A few years after the trial, the Resistance and Deportation History Centre was founded in Lyon. The initiative for its creation came from the then mayor of the city, Michel Noir, and the former lawyer of the victims in the trial against Klaus Barbie, Alain Jakubowicz. The Resistance and Deportation History Centre was inaugurated on 15th October 1992 in the presence of Elie Wiesel, survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Jacques Chaban-Delmas, former resistance fighter and Prime Minister of France.

The decision to establish the Resistance and Deportation History Centre in the former school for military doctors was highly symbolic: the building was used by the Gestapo as its headquarters during the German occupation, and the Résistance leader Jean Moulin was tortured there after his arrest on 21st June 1943.

The permanent exhibition was reimagined in 2011 and reopened in 2012. Among other things, it presents objects, photographs, archival documents and audiovisual testimonies illustrating the history of Lyon during World War II. In addition, the Resistance and Deportation History Centre regularly presents temporary exhibitions focusing on everyday life during the war, links with other historical events and current issues and the biographies of historical figures. The Resistance and Deportation History Centre is also the only institution authorised to show excerpts from the trial of Klaus Barbie and provides access to its extensive collections through its library and online portal.

In 2024, the Resistance and Deportation History Centre welcomed more than 65,000 visitors.

Lyon, 1909, School for military doctors, Historic postcard, public domain

Lyon, 1944, School for military doctors after an air raid on May 26, 1944, Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation / Émile Rougé

Possibilities

Permanent exhibition on the history of Lyon during World War II, temporary exhibitions on various topics, guided tours, workshops, documentation centre, public access to the collections via an online portal, online resources

Open

- Museum and shop:
Wednesday to Sunday: 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.
Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
- Library:
Wednesday to Friday: 1.30 p.m. to 5.00 p.m.
Mornings by appointment

Contact

https://www.chrd.lyon.fr/

14 avenue Berthelot
69007 Lyon, France

Lyon, 2019, View of the permanent exhibition, Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation / Pierre Verrier, CC BY-SA 4.0

Lyon, 2024, View of the permanent exhibition, Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation / Philippe Somnolet

Lyon, 2024, Guided tour in the permanent exhibition, Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation / Philippe Somnolet

Lyon, 2019, Entrance of the memorial, Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation, public domain

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