Country: France
Distance: 1,586 km
Travel time: 14 days
On postcard: The Jean Moulin Memorial in Caluire
"The Jean Moulin Memorial" in Caluire, on the site where Jean Moulin and his comrades of the High Command of the Secret Army were arrested on the 21st June 1943, is a symbolic site, a place of civic remembrance and a place for the future.
The arrest of General Delestraint "Vidal", head of the "Secret Army" on the 9th June 1943 in Paris, forced Jean Moulin to take interim measures to arrange his successor as quickly as possible and reorganise the army's operations. This was the reason for the meeting in Caluire. Jean Moulin charged André Lassagne with the task of choosing the meeting place, a house built in the 19th century in Caluire et Cuire, to the north of Lyon and rented by Doctor Frédéric Dugoujon.
The stakes were high midway through 1943, as some resistance fighters were anticipating the Allied landings "before the autumn leaves began to fall", and the opening of a second front was eagerly awaited by the Red Army in the East.
The battle against the occupying forces had now become a political battle looking towards the future... the ambitions of some leaders of the "Combat" movement began to emerge and spread at the expense of all the rules for safety.
On that day, the 21st June 1943, a short time after the arrival of the attendees, around ten men under the orders of Klaus Barbie, head of the Gestapo in Lyon, stormed the premises and arrested all those present. They were taken to the Gestapo's headquarters at the Military Medical School in Avenue Berthelot and then transferred to Fort Montluc before being deported. Jean Moulin was tortured and died in Metz during his transfer to Germany.
In this Memorial, the historical context is reconstructed through a film about the Prefect Moulin - the man himself, the story of his struggle from Chartres to Caluire and the exemplary nature of this patriot and republican in his mission as "REX". The whole story is expanded in a simple illustrated chronological frieze which lays out the key points of reference (dates, men and places) up until the trial of Klaus Barbie in 1987.
The four memorial rooms trace events and concentrate on the values of the Republic as defended by the commitment of the resistance fighters against the occupying forces and Nazism.
The end result of the violent confrontation experienced on the afternoon of the 21st June at 3pm is to provoke reflection on the ever-present struggle between political and religious totalitarianism and the Republic of free and lay citizens.
Moreover, this place of remembrance and history is timeless, in the way it links to the present through the reconciliation and construction of a European Union, born from the spirit of solidarity in the face of tyranny.
The house of Dugoujon was included on the list of historical monuments on the17th July 1990 as a place of major importance for the Résistance.
In 2010, it was renovated by the Département of the Rhône and converted into a Memorial that was opened by François Fillon on the 21st June 2010.
0 коммент.:
Отправить комментарий