Museum of Resistance, Deportation and Liberation of Lot in Cahors France

[harry211]

If you ever find yourself in Cahors, France, I would highly recommend you spend a few hours visiting this museum. It is a small museum, arranged over 3 floors, but is packed with fascinating displays and information. There are 2 rooms per floor each named after a hero of the French resistance.

The first room on the ground floor is named after Louis-Emilien Imbert, the first resistance leader in the Lot region killed by the Germans. He entered the Secret Army in 1941 and was involved in exchanging messages with London and organising parachute drops. He has arrested by the Gestapo on 30th November 1943 and was killed on the same day. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour. This room charts the beginning of the Resistance and shows life for the French under occupation.

The second room on the ground floor is in honour of Jean-Jaques Chapou. He was key in setting up the Maquis who's opposition to the occupation took the form of armed resistance. Known as "Captain Philippe", he was killed in an ambush on 16th July 1944, aged 35. This room deals with the Maquis and the armed struggle prior to the D-Day landings.

Here are photos of the displays and information boards from these 2 rooms
:

[Jerry B]

It looks to be a good museum to the resistance. There is one in Amsterdam which is pretty good as well.

[harry211]

The second floor is devoted to 'Internment and Deportation' with the room dedicated to Helene Metges. She died at Ravensbruck and had run the Café de Midi which was used as a meeting place of Resistance of Cahors, and to 'Repression' in the room dedicated to Charles Boizard, a member of the Maquis who was captured and later shot.

The repression room answered one of the questions we had about this area as we had seen a few memorials such as this one in the smaller villages and did not know what had occurred:


From the museum we learnt that this, and other similar massacres were carried out by elements of the "Das Reich" division during their brutal repression of the local population during May to August 1944

[cricketchris1944]

It is a very good Museum.
there is a antique store not to far from it.
Full of ww2 stuff a lot of US this was 15 years ago
chris

[CARL]

Thank you for posting this Harry, looks a good place to visit.

Regards,

Carl

[AZPhil]

Yes indeed. Thank you for posting those picture,. Very interesting!!!
Semper Fi
Phil

[Epalm1]

New to your site, but just wanted to post that there is a good Resistance museum in Pau in case anyone is interested. Epam1