Paris- World War II sites-tours?

Among the tour companies recommended in Rick's guidebook, www.paris-walks.com does sometimes offer a tour related to the Occupation and Resistance and www.contextparis.com may also have something. I'd say it's not a very popular topic for tourists to the city.

A few years ago I took a Paris Walk about the liberation of Paris, led by a Franco-American student. He was eager and armed with anecdotes, but in truth there is not a great deal to see aside from commemorative plaques. Paris mostly escaped heavy fighting so buildings that were taken over by Nazi commanders and then went back to their owners show little effect aside from stray bullet holes. There are sites where Jews were rounded up for the extermination camps and a low-slung monument on the right bank of the Seine. But it took decades for the conflicted consciences of the French population to begin resolution and in that atmosphere perhaps people preferred to not confront the issues of how to build memorials.

If you will be in Paris fairly soon, a special exhibit at the Carnavalet, the city history museum, focuses on the military liberation. It is based on a show of photographs and films that was mounted only a few months after De Gaulle and the Americans marched in. 70 years later, the curators demonstrate that what was left out of the original show is as illuminating as what went up on the walls. For instance, the American command would not allow photographs to be taken of its black members. And most of the photos of women concentrated on supposed collaborators having their heads shaved, a punishment not visibly extended to men. We can learn from how history is presented as well as its evidence. http://www.carnavalet.paris.fr/en/exhibitions but only until the second week of February.

By many accounts Hitler-being the art aficionado that he was-was loathe to damage Paris, a city whose beauty even he recognized. Of course they helped themselves to the Louvre...

You may need to dig a little and go it on your own when you find sights you want to visit. It occurs to me that there may be some good historical fiction or documentary account that you could research to uncover interesting stories.

I'm currently reading the first book in Ken Follett's Century Trilogy, Fall of Giants, which deals with WW1 and I learned about the Paris taxi's that moved soldiers at one point in 1914. There's endless places in the city where incredible things have happened.

From the Wiki-
Between six hundred and a thousand taxicabs and drivers were assembled on the evening of 6 September on the esplanade of Les Invalides. They were mostly the Renault AG1 Landaulet model, with an average speed of 25 kilometres per hour (16 mph). Within twenty-four hours, they transported the Villemonble and Gagny battalions, about six thousand soldiers and officers, 50 kilometres (31 mi) to the front at Nanteuil-le-Haudouin. Each taxi carried five soldiers, four in the back and one next to the driver. Only the back lights of the taxis were lit; the drivers were instructed to follow the lights of the taxi ahead. Most of the taxis were demobilized on September 8, but some remained longer to carry the wounded and refugees. The taxis, following city regulations, dutifully ran their meters. The French treasury reimbursed the total fare of 70,012 francs.

The book "Is Paris Burning?" has a good account of the Occupation. With info from the book and a map, you can put a lot together. Never saw the movie. Also, grave markers in the cemeteries from this period are moving. Jewish stones and others are engraved "Lost in the Deportation" with photos.

There is an excellent Holocaust museum in the Marais, which combines easily with the deportation memorial near Notre Dame. Des Invalides also has some excellent WWII sections. "Is Paris Burning" is a good read for explaining the Nazi approach to Paris. "Sarah's Key" is a touching read about Jewish deportation and "A Train in Winter" discusses the Resistance. The gendarmes, if they are around, are pretty nice about explaining the significance of the plaques you see up on buildings.

To dig deep into the history of intellectual complicity during the Nazi occupation, I recommend The Shameful Peace, by Frederic Spotts. The complex issues of survival are explored in great detail, evaluating plenty of internationally famous artists and authors along with influential thinkers whot were not well-known to this English-speaker. On film, Marcel Ophuls' long documentary The Sorrow and the Pity changed the entire climate of thought in Paris about the occupation.

The book "Suite Francaise" by Irene Nemirovsky is two novellas set during the beginning of the Occupation. It was written during WWII, and the three other planned sections were never completed, as the author was sent to a death camp. I realize that sounds rather sensationalist, but the book is so well written. It gives a contemporaneous account, following several people through the evacuation of Paris, and later in a village occupied by Germans.

You might want to go to the American cemetery Suresnes outside of Paris. I haven't been yet but it's on my list.

Hi,

On WW II sites in Paris: Aside from the presentation of the war given in the Army Museum at Les Invalides, two other museums I recommend are "Musée du Maréchal Leclerc and Musée Jean Moulin, (close to Montparnasse station) if you want to see the history from a different focus, especially if you can read French.

To see the site where the 1918 Armistice was signed and where Hitler imposed it on the French in 1940, take a day trip out to Compiègne from Paris Gare du Nord . You'll notice that the Armistice proceedings in 1918 did not include an American representative, neither US Army nor civilian. Not far, also within walking distance, from that site and museum is a far grimmer site of the rail Deportation.

The signature in the railway wagon was the final part of the 1918 armistice; there had been other agreements between the belligerents beforehand. In fact there were only French and Germans in the wagon, no other nationalities at all. The United States would have signed the armistice with Germany shortly before and at another location. Hence no American representatives at Compiegnes (or British, or Austro-Hungarian for that matter).

As far as I recall without checking first with the photos I took in the Armistice wagon, other nationalities beside the French and German military and civilian representatives were that of the British and the Australians. Since the armistice dealt with the Western Front, that explains no Austro-Hungarian representatives.

I may be very wrong, but I believe I've read that the railroad carriage where the World War I armistice was signed was destroyed in World War II.
BTW, one thing you can do from Paris is to visit the D-day beaches. I did with a tour. The tour bus will pick you up at 7 a.m. If you're lucky, you'll get back by 10 p.m. The tour I was on was good but be forewarned that it is often rainy and cold along the Normandy beaches.

That's what I have heard too that the original railway car was destroyed. Two different stories as to how it was destroyed, one from the British documentary series "World at War." Still, the result is the same. That at Compiègne today is a replica.