Letters, photos, diaries… 80 years later, the French invited to return Liberation documents to the archives

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, the French have been able since Wednesday to hand over everything relating to the Liberation to the public archives service.

Since Wednesday April 17, the French have been invited to hand over to the public archives service the documents they may have on the period of the Liberation, the 80th anniversary of which we are going to celebrate: personal and family documents, letters, diaries will enrich the museums and improve historians’ knowledge of the period. Because letters and everyday objects also tell the story.

Nearly 80 years after the battles of the Liberation, the Vercors museum still collects objects from the period: the dashboard of a German glider buried in a garden, a walking stick engraved by a resistance fighter and, there little by little, one of the radios which allowed the fighters to communicate with London. “Very recently, we received the radio case which was used in the Vercors maquis, accompanied by all the equipment necessary to make it work, says Pierre-Louis Fillet, the director of the Vercors Resistance Museum. In particular a small silk coding handkerchief, but also the false identity document of this radio operator, who was called Jean Cendral.

“The objects are a good way to make a link between this historical period and the current period, 80 years later.”

Pierre-Louis Fillet

at franceinfo

“And the young people, he adds, are always fascinated by these objects whose story is told to them and which capture their attention.”

A state of mind of the times

If all these objects tell the story, the letters are very useful, they testify to the state of mind of the time. In 1998, the historian Jean-Pierre Guéno launched an appeal on France Info to collect letters from poilus 80 years after the end of the Great War. He received more than 20,000 and these letters even changed the way the First World War was told. “”These are not memories of veterans, they are texts written under the fire of grapeshot, in the mud of the trenches, in the heat of combat, he explains. So these are definitely not memories of veterans, because they are of no interest to anyone, he continues. This completely changed the way history is transmitted by reminding us of a very simple thing: it is not only the great figures, the great headliners who make history, it is these people of no rank, and not anonymous ones. , because their names remain, which were our grandparents and great-grandparents.”