PREFACE The Shoah Memorial has been actively involved for many years in the development and preparation of the National Competition for Resistance and Deportation (CNRD). In particular, every year, it offers training sessions for teachers, screenings and debates for students, a minisite of resources on the internet, and an itinerant exhibition on the theme of the competition that circulates throughout France. In 2021-2022, the Shoah Memorial will become even more involved in organizing and promoting the competition by coordinating for the first time the national brochure for preparing for the CNRD. This brochure was produced under the authority of Inspector General Tristan Lecoq, in close partnership, obviously, with other institutions and museums involved in the life and success of the CNRD. It should be noted that this is now a "historic" competition since it is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. On this occasion, the Memorial is also presenting in its premises, in partnership with the Museum of National Resistance of Champigny-sur-Marne, an exhibition that traces the evolution of this civic ordeal. The theme chosen this year is "The end of the war. Operations, repressions, deportations and the end of the Third Reich (1944-1945)." The texts and documents gathered in this brochure will allow teachers and students who participate in this competition to better prepare themselves, while also bringing to life the values of the Republic and the memory of the Resistance and the Deportation.

Jacques Fredj Director of the Shoah Memorial

Traveling exhibition The Shoah Memorial presents a new traveling exhibition "The end of the war in Europe 1944-1945, forgotten routes" on the 2021-2022 theme of the CNRD. It is intended to circulate in schools that will request it. This exhibition focuses, while covering the general military context, on forgotten itineraries: those of armies, offensives, and those of resistant individuals, deportees, civilians, caught up in the military operations that led between 1944 and 1945 to the end of the Third Reich. The exhibition is illustrated with excerpts from diaries, archival documents, images, maps, and lexiques, and is complemented by an educational support booklet. Other traveling exhibitions related to the CNRD 2021-2022 theme are also available.

Reservation: Caroline François Tel.: 01 53 01 17 09 caroline.francois@memorialdelashoah.org

INTRODUCTION PART I

The Nazi fortress on the eve of the great offensives

FROM SUMMER 1944 6 The strategies and tactics

Military in Europe 8 Generalization

punitive actions 10 The pursuit of extermination

of the Jewish population 12 The use of weapons

propaganda 14 Cinema, a central weapon in war propaganda

PART II

THE STRUGGLES FOR LIBERATION AND FORMS OF REPRESSION

(SUMMER 1944-WINTER 1944-1945) 15 The theater of operations

and the first liberations 18 The massacres, war crimes

and deportations 21 Forced labor in the service

of the Nazi war machine 23 Oral testimonies from collection to use in class

PART III THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

Concentration camp and the collapse of the Third Reich

(WINTER-SPRING 1944-1945) 24 Auschwitz-Birkenau 26 The evacuations and marches

of death 28 The last clashes

and the opening of the camps 30 The discovery of the universe

concentration camp after the fall of the Reich

32 Critical analysis of a historical photograph 34 Resources

CONTENTS

▲ American soldier at Kaufering X O subcamp of Dachau) on the day the camp was discovered, 27 April 1945. © United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Dr. Alfred B. Sundquist.

@ The @ symbol indicates resources that can be viewed online throughout the brochure pages. The links to access them are available on the digital brochure, an expanded version of the paper brochure, accessible on the website of the Shoah Memorial: www.memorialdelashoah.org, section Pedagogy and training/CNRD.

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