Besançon Museum of the Resistance and Deportation
History Museum: A Tool for Civic Engagement
This attraction is not recommended for children under 10.
The museum
Open since 1971, the Museum of the Resistance and Deportation in Besançon is a leading museum dedicated to the history of World War II.
After 15 years of planning and a three-year closure for renovations, the museum reopened its doors on September 8, 2023. The renovation aimed to redesign the exhibition spaces, make the museum accessible to all, and create a setting specifically dedicated to the museum’s crown jewel: the art collection from the deportation period. Today, it seeks to reexamine its various missions to become an institution of knowledge and history, a place intimately connected to society and the world in which it exists—a “history museum, a tool for citizenship.”
It now features three separate exhibition spaces:
Through more than 500 artifacts and archival documents, it offers a deep dive into the complexities of the history of World War II in France.
A unique venue in France, it offers visitors the chance to view a selection of the 600 drawings, paintings, and statuettes created in secret by deportees in the Reich’s camps and prisons—one of the most extensive collections in Europe.
The temporary exhibition space
Every year, the museum presents a new temporary exhibition in a dedicated space.
Spotlight on ...
Lecture by Virginie Daudin – Director of the “Résistance et Liberté” regional center and project manager for the preservation and promotion of the site of the former Montreuil-Bellay internment camp.
As part of its lecture series, the Museum of the Resistance and Deportation is pleased to welcome Adèle Sutre for its next lecture.
In Maine-et-Loire, twenty kilometers from Saumur, the Montreuil-Bellay camp was one of the main internment camps for Roma in France following the issuance of the German order to intern theZigeunerin the occupied zone (October 4, 1940).
From November 1941 to January 1945, nearly 2,000 men, women, and children were interned there.
Over the past forty years, thanks to individual and then municipal initiatives, this significant site has been rescued from obscurity.
It was designated a historic monument in 2012. In 2016, in Montreuil-Bellay, 70 years after the liberation of the last nomads, President François Hollande acknowledged France’s responsibility for this internment.
This marks the beginning of a process of cultural preservation that will culminate in the fall of 2027 with the creation of the first memorial dedicated to the history of the internment of nomads in France.
Reservations are required (free of charge) and can be made at the box office here: https://vosdemarches.grandbesancon.fr/billetterie/mrdb
Photo by Virginie Daudin ©DR