The Museum of Resistance and Deportation in Besançon History and tour
The Museum
The museum is not recommended for children under 10 years of age.
History Museum, a civic tool
History Museum: this has been the mission of the Museum of Resistance and Deportation since its inception, and one that is more essential than ever today. It also aims to be a civic tool, placing great importance on questioning, knowledge, and history as critical thinking.
Thus, beyond the history of World War II, the museum's narrative addresses timeless issues such as the rise to power of a totalitarian regime, the collapse of a democracy, the establishment of a system of repression and extermination on a large scale, as well as those of the Resistance and commitment to values that transcend individuals.
Museum map
The history of the Museum, key dates
Monument to those who were shot
Between 1941 and 1944, 98 resistance fighters of various nationalities were shot by the German army at the citadel. A monument erected after the Liberation pays tribute to them.
The story of each person who was executed is accessible via a digital tool available to the public in the permanent exhibition. The museum continues its research work to find photos, letters, and objects that belonged to them. By helping to put a face to a name, it shines a light on those who died for France.
The Witness and the Resurrection Garden
Opposite the museum entrance, a new garden calledResurrection pays tribute to those deported during World War II.
It is planted with the Resurrection rose, a creation by rose breeder Michel Kriloff, designed at the request of Marcelle Dudach-Roset (1918-1998), a former deportee from the Ravensbrück camp. These roses, which bloom in many memorial sites, embody freedom and peace. In the center , the statue of the Witness, created in 1950 by Georges Oudot, invites visitors to explore the museum.
Collections
The museum holds 120,000 items in its collections, including 100,000 archives and photos, 600 posters, 14,000 objects, and 600 works of art related to deportation. They illustrate the museum's main themes: the rise of totalitarianism, the collapse of 1940, daily life under the Occupation, the Resistance and repression, internment, deportation and extermination, then Liberation and Reconstruction, as well as post-war testimonies.
Offer a donation to the museum
Since 1971, more than 1,700 donors have entrusted their family archives to the museum. If you have any questions about donating documents, objects, or photographs from World War II, please contact us.
Art in deportation
The art collection from deportation is displayed in two rooms dedicated to the end of the permanent exhibition. With more than 600 works, this collection is one of the richest in Europe. Through a selection of drawings, small paintings, and statuettes created clandestinely by deportees in the concentration camps and prisons of the Reich, discover how women and men found the strength and courage to draw, despite the omnipresence of hunger and death. These "small works" express a desire to pass on and bear witness, as well as to resist a system designed to crush bodies and minds.
Random access memory
Find more museum collections on Mémoire vive, the City of Besançon's digitized heritage website.
Temporary exhibition
Exhibition Ceija Stokja "Keep Your Eyes Open"
(On display from February 27 to September 21, 2026
at the Besançon Museum of Fine Arts and the Besançon Museum of Resistance and Deportation)
Born in Austria into the Lovara Romani community, Ceija Stojka (1933–2013) was a self-taught artist, author, painter, and illustrator. A survivor of the Auschwitz, Ravensbrück, and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, where she lived from 1943 to 1945, aged 10 to 12, she was one of the first to bear witness to the genocide of the Gypsies perpetrated by the Nazis, more than forty years after the events.
She first published a book, Nous vivons cachés. Récits d’une Romni à travers le siècle(We Live Hidden: Stories of a Romni Woman Through the Century), in 1988. The following year, she took up painting, an activity she pursued until the last years of her life, creating around a thousand paintings and drawings over a period of 25 years.
Ceija Stojka is an internationally renowned artist associated with art brut, as well as an iconic figure of the Romani people and their extermination during World War II.
The exhibition presented at the Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology in Besançon, co-curated with the Museum of Resistance and Deportation, invites the public to discover this female artist through an approach that combines art and history, aesthetics and memory. Featuring 113 works, mainly from private collections, the exhibition is divided into three sections, exploring different facets of Ceija Stojka's work. In the first section, the landscapes reveal her extreme sensitivity to the variations in nature according to the weather and the seasons. The second part brings together images of deportation to Nazi concentration camps, combining the perspective of the child she was with that of the adult she became. The third section focuses on the motif of the eye, which is recurrent in Ceija Stojka's work and has multiple meanings; this eye is also the one she used to portray the world of the 1990s and 2000s, an eye deeply imbued with humanity.
In the exhibition rooms of the Museum of Resistance and Deportation, the two documentary films made by Karin Berger about Ceija Stojka will be shown on a continuous loop:
- Ceija Stojka, 1999, 85 minutes, original version with French subtitles, Navigator Film production.
- Under the Boards, Green Grass, 2005, ("Unter den Brettern hellgrünes Gras"), 52 minutes, original version with French subtitles, Navigator Film production
.
Please note:
Exhibition open during Citadel opening hours.
Lectures related to the temporary exhibition are offered throughout the year. For more information, seethe Citadel calendar.
Past exhibitions
Discover previous temporary exhibitions
Cultural offerings
Educational offering
The museum aims to be an educational tool for the citizens of tomorrow. Through its collections, it provides schoolchildren with a solid foundation of knowledge, while also encouraging them to question universal issues, both historical and contemporary, such as violence in our societies, reactions to intolerance, and learning to live together.
That is why the museum's outreach program focuses primarily on welcoming schoolchildren, from fifth grade through higher education.
Since 2023, 5,869 pupils and students have taken part in the museum's workshop tours. This format offers a two-part discovery of the museum: accompanied by a guide, the pupils visit the various exhibition spaces, then, in a workshop in the educational room, they explore a theme in greater depth, using facsimiles from the collections.
Every year, the museum participates in the creation of a brochure on the annual theme of the National Competition on the Resistance and Deportation, intended for teachers and students. Access the 2025-2026 brochure here: CNRD brochure
Conferences
To complement its educational and scientific mission, the museum organizes a free lecture open to all on the third Thursday of every month from September to June.
Lecturers, historians, writers, journalists, professors, archivists, comic book artists, and illustrators are invited to share their work related to the museum's themes.
Past conferences
Resource Center
Resource Center
Since the late 1980s, the resource center has been at the heart of the museum's activities. It has 12, 000 books available for loan, as well as thousands of newspapers, and provides access to the museum's rich archives. An everyday working tool for the museum, it also welcomes researchers, students, and anyone interested in World War II.
The resource center is accessible by appointment.
Library catalog
Find all the books available for consultation and borrowing using the BAM catalog.
Newsletter
Discover our quarterly newsletter, "Between the Lines."
Past newsletters
Contacts
The team at the Museum of Resistance and Deportation:
- Vincent Briand, Director and Curator
- Aurélie Cousin, Deputy Director and Head of Collections
- Marie Boley, mediation officer
- Mathilde Cantenot, Collections Assistant
- Adèle Delaune, stage manager
- Karine Dupoux-Binder, archivist
- Jeanne Pohren, mediation officer
Museum reception
Tel. 03 63 42 58 06
accueilmrdb@citadelle.besancon.fr
Information about donations
Tel. 03 81 87 83 14
transmettre.mrdb@citadelle.besancon.fr
If you have any archives, objects, or photographs from World War II and would like to see this heritage preserved and promoted, please contact us.
Mediation
Tel: 03 81 87 83 17
mediation.mrdb@citadelle.besancon.fr
Discover our mediation services for adult groups and school groups.
Resource center
Tel: 03 81 61 50 10
documentation.mrdb@citadelle.besancon.fr
Friends of the Museum Association
amis.mrd.besancon@gmail.com
The association promotes the museum and supports its various projects. Its members enjoy free admission and are involved in the life of the museum.
