Visit to the Museum of Resistance, in Cahors

Updated 29/10/2016

TODAY saw President Sarkozy and British PM, David Cameron, mark the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle's wartime broadcast urging France to fight back against the Nazi occupation.

And a short extract of de Gaulle's speech appears on a plaque outside the Musée de la Résistance, in Cahors, while inside you learn how that fight back took place and the stories of those who didn't live to enjoy victory in 1945.

Across six rooms you learn how the Resistance in the Lot département took shape to attack armoured columns, bomb railway lines and support Allied troops and operations in the region.

But the wider story of World War Two is also told, including the horrors of deportation and the Final Solution, as well as atrocities that took place on French soil.

This closeness was brought home whilst chatting to a volunteer in the museum, who told of how his father was sent to a work camp in Poland, after being arrested by the Vichy-backed Milice, never to return.

And it was whilst talking that he said around 40 per cent of visitors to the museum are British, ensuring their are guidebooks available in English.

The Musée de la Résistance opened in 1992, housed in buildings once used by the local police force, and each of the six rooms is dedicated to a hero of the region who gave their life for the cause of Liberty.

As you read the history of the war, and the stories of local battles and massacres, you realise that many of the panels you are reading are hand written or typed.

Those who survived clearly felt the only way they could show their appreciation of the men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice was by ensuring their stories were complete.

Almost every space on the walls is covered with articles, maps and objects, including uniforms and equipment from the war, some of the cases dropped by parachute which contained supplies and even an example of the thin, striped suits worn by those who were deported to concentration camps.

I would give yourself a couple of hours to slowly walk around the museum, although there is no lift access to the first and second floors.

The museum also has a second building just next door where the history of World War One, as well as the wars in Indochina and Algeria are told, although they are a little shorter in length, the same attention to detail is clear.

In his BBC broadcast de Gaulle urged all Frenchmen to unite with him in action, in sacrifice and in hope - 70 years ago individuals did that and more, today the Musée de la Résistance ensures their memory lives on.

Location:
Place Bessière
46000 Cahors
Open 2pm - 6pm, free entrance. Closed Sunday.

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Other things to do in the region
The Tuilières hydroelectric dam and fish lift
A walk around Prats-du-Périgord, the Dordogne
The peace of the river Dordogne from a canoe
Belves Medieval Fair - stepping back in time
Abbaye Nouvelle, a place of hidden stories
Lalbenque truffle market