Lyon has a top quality war museum... featuring its courageous resistance fighters... and the suffering Lyon citizens experienced at the hands of the Gestapo. The museum is easily accessible from the town centre... located in the building first erected as a military hospital... but used during the war as a prison for resistance fighters... with all accessories needed to inflict torture... and so Jews were transported in when the Gestapo wanted to have a chat with them.
The museum properly focuses on the stories of the victims... and the stories from Lyon's victims had chilling similarities to Gestapo victims from other town and other camps. Lyon was the location of the first trial for 'crimes against humanity' in 1987... where the head of Gestapo, Mr Barbie, was prosecuted. The trial provided a platform for many victims to formally/publicly tell of their personal experiences for the first time. Television recordings of the testimonies made compelling viewing. The victims were recounting events that happened 43 years previously... yet could could see their emotions were as raw as if the events happened yesterday.
What seemed to make acceptance of events more difficult for some people was the acquiescence of government at all levels within France to the evils perpetrated by the Gestapo. The Vinchy government (under president Petain) collaborated with invading German troops... who swept through France and reached the outskirts of Lyon... Lyon was readying themselves to fight. Upon seeing the magnitude of the German forces on their doorstep, local government along with Paris and the Germans agreed that no fighting should take place... but rather, Lyon should be made an 'open city'. The local government was replaced by people that the Vinchy government appointed... and act as puppets for the Germans. Refugees from neighbouring countries flooded into Lyon. For the first few years of the war, appeasement seemed to have served the interests of Lyon's citizens... the Jews were segmented and disadvantaged... but the atrocities were few and kept quiet. The resistance movement started to organise itself... but the local police were able to keep damage in check... and there weren't large numbers of German troops to attack. Captured resistance fighters were imprisoned... but news of atrocities were not common.
In 1944, everything went haywire... the goals were full... camps were opened... once the idea of the camp became accepted, they built more and started rounding up the Jewish citizens. Barbie showed his true colours and started doing atrocious things to prisoners... personally delivered torture. The local community was agasp... and started giving the resistance fighters much more support. When the camps filled up... they booked the cattle wagons and started moving large numbers of people to the concentration camps in Germany. News of Russian troop advances further catalysed the escalation of evil. It seemed that the fear of defeat encouraged Gestapo officers to become more evil.
Lyon was bombed near the end of the war. The target was the rail network... but the civilian population took a lot of the damage.
War is a cacophony of stupid judgements... but it seems particularly sad that Lyon suffered most of its damage with no particular military objective... just wonton violence... so much suffering for so little purpose. Lyon is prepared to display its war history... with warts and all... and such exposure may make a repetition of mistakes less likely.
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