Resources "World War II"

Despite the ban in the northern zone and the shortage of film, amateur filmmakers captured moments of their daily lives under the Occupation or shot footage with the aim of bearing witness.

A jubilant crowd in Pithiviers, flag salutes in Les Hermites, champagne shared in Auneau, parades of resistance fighters in Levroux and Voves... A Liberation itinerary in the Centre-Val de Loire region.

In 1943, Jane Billard, a social worker and nurse at the Douadic camp, filmed the lives of the internees. Long neglected by its director, this piece of history was brought to prominence thanks to the film ‘La Nasse’ shot in 2006 by Philippe Barlet and Jacques Merlaud. We look back at this investigation, which sheds light on a camp that is sometimes forgotten.

Few amateur filmmakers captured the strange atmosphere of the months following the declaration of war in September 1939 on film. Roger Prenois filmed this period and offers us his ‘travel diary’ between Paris and his various military camps.

After the war, Paul-Ursin Dumont made an 8 mm film documenting the Occupation and Liberation in his town of Vendôme (with commentary by a local historian).

An electrical and radio engineer based in Illiers-Combray since the late 1920s, Georges Godfroid filmed the town after the bombings of May 1940 and its liberation by the Americans in August 1944.

Four reproductions of the statue of Our Lady of Boulogne, ‘Queen of Peace’, travelled throughout France from 1943 to 1948, particularly in the Centre-Val de Loire region.

In 1992, Georges Chéry and Claude Dugénit recounted their stories and their involvement in the Resistance in the Indre region to pupils at the Collège Diderot in Issoudun.

Interview with Raphaël Millet, director in residence at CICLIC's heritage centre in Issoudun, working on a documentary about the Elster column, which was stopped in Berry by the Resistance during its retreat at the end of the summer of 1944.

The Second World War and the Occupation are fairly well-documented periods in history. Despite this, they sometimes fuel an imagination mixed with reality and glorious or traumatic stories. Fishing is no exception. It is quite common to hear that fishermen did not go out to sea during the Occupation. And for good reason: German troops were on the lookout and every movement was scrutinised, even suppressed. But what is the truth? - article by Lucas Bosseboeuf, researcher.

This Light is not that of the sun, containing archives from the collections of the Cinémathèque des pays de Savoie and the Ain, is a film about memory that gives a voice to members of the Resistance. Access the educational file for the film.

This sequence by an unknown director shows men of various ages wearing German Wehrmacht uniforms marching through the streets of Strasbourg in 1941. They are inspected by Adolf Hühnlein, Major General of the NSKK. The soldiers then travel to Goxwiller by coach. Analysis.

The MIRA association holds more than two hundred German educational films dating from the 1930s in its collection. Collected between 2015 and 2022 in Molsheim, Thann and then Sélestat, these are unique items that bear witness to the important role played by educational documentaries in German schools during the Nazi period and in Alsatian schools during the period of annexation.

Between April and May 1946, Gauleiter Wagner was tried by the Military Tribunal in Strasbourg, along with some of his accomplices. He was sentenced to death for the crimes he committed in Alsace, including the expulsion of 20,000 Alsatians, the creation of the Struthof concentration camp and countless death sentences. An amateur filmmaker was able to capture a few moments of the trial.