Permanent exhibition: Lyon in the war 1939-1945

LYON IN THE WAR, 1939 - 1945

The CHRD (Resistance and Deportation History Center)'s permanent exhibition retraces the history of the Second World War, particularly in Lyon.
 

The objects bequeathed by former members of the Resistance and deportees, photographs, archive documents and audiovisual testimonies, provide an insight into the daily reality of a city at war during the Occupation years, with its difficulties of daily life, anti-Semitic policies, Resistance commitments and repression.
An audio guide system helps the visitor feel the atmosphere of the Occupation years, and provide a context to the objets and photos exposed (additional cost : 1€ on entrance price).

Practical Information
 

At the heart of the collections

The CHRD's collections originate from Lyon's first Resistance museum, the Musée Boileau, founded in the 1960s by former members of the Resistance and deportees. Since then, numerous donations and acquisitions have enriched this initial collection.
Leaflets collected by a Resistance policeman throughout the years, objects brought back from concentration camps, archives of the Federation of Prisoners of War' Wives, a fragment of Jean Moulin's parachute... Around a hundred particularly remarkable objects and archive documents have been extracted from the collections to make up the permanent exhibition.

Visual testimonies, the common thread running through the exhibition

Nearly 30 audiovisual points accompany the exhibition. Focusing on a chronology, an object or a theme, they deliver the voices of witnesses, most of them former members of the Resistance and deportees. They were filmed in the 1990s as part of a collection of over 700 testimonies initiated by the CHRD. These testimonies, available in full in our online catalogue, offer a sensitive counterpoint to the discovery of the period.
 

Extracts of the Barbie's trial

Photography, an essential medium

The CHRD is particularly attached to photography. The permanent exhibition hightlights the work of Emile Rougé, André Gamet and Charles Bobenrieth, three photographers who were active in Lyon during the Second World War. Their photographs, some of which were taken clandestinely, capture the very special atmosphere that surronded the population on the eve of the conflict, followed by the German presence in the town, right up to the downfall. 
These images reveal many of Lyon's most emblematic and familiar landmarks in a whole new light.

© Photo Pierre Verrier, 2012