The mobilization of women during the war was unprecedented. Yet their place in resistance movements, like the reality of Jewish resistance, has long been ignored. The exhibition proposed by the Memorial with Casterman Editions does them justice. To be seen from March 8 to September 30, 2016.
The publication by Casterman editions of a series of albums dedicated to women in resistance during the Second World War, the latest opus of which is devoted to the French resistance fighter Mila Racine, offers the opportunity to pay tribute to Jewish resistance fighters while celebrating the vitality of graphic and editorial creation in historical comics.
These women fought against the enemy, both in France and in occupied Europe, the concentration camps and killing centers.
Composed of many original archival documents and photographs, sixty objects and comic strips, this exhibition produced in partnership with Casterman draws a portrait of these women without whom, according to the quote of Henri Rol-Tanguy, "Half of our work would have been impossible."
In their vast majority, the resistants have deployed an activity that does not involve either clandestinity or even an apparent break with expectations related to their gender. Defense of the values of democracy, rejection of anti-Semitism and xenophobia, desire to save people under threat... were the common points of their commitment, itself specific by its precocity, its spontaneity, and its anchoring in the heart of the home.
