Description of the attraction
The Museum of the Liberation of Paris is officially called in an unusual way: Memorial Museum of Leclerc and Jean Moulin. The two names in the title reflect the origin of the collection.
The main part of the exhibition tells about two legendary figures: Marshal Jean Philippe Leclerc and one of the founders of the French Resistance Jean Moulin. At the end of the last century, first the Leclerc Memorial Foundation, and then Jean Moulin's friend Antoinette Sass, donated their collections to Paris on the condition that the memorial will be named after the heroes.
These names symbolize two forces that, united, led to the liberation of the country from Nazi occupation: the Resistance movement operating inside France and de Gaulle's troops, called "Fighting France".
The artist and official Jean Moulin made his way from occupied France to London in 1941 and met with de Gaulle there. On a mission as a general, Moulin united disparate guerrilla groups to form the National Council of the Resistance. On June 21, 1943, Moulin was captured by the Gestapo. He was interrogated and tortured personally by the "butcher of Lyons" Hauptsturmführer Klaus Barbier. Jean Moulin did not betray his comrades and died on the way to the concentration camp.
Leclerc is the pseudonym of Count Jacques Philippe de Otklok, which he took to protect the family that remained in France. The count's ancestors took part in the Crusades and the Napoleonic Wars. He sided with de Gaulle and led the troops he commanded to fight against the Germans. In 1944, he commanded the military units of France during the Allied landing in Normandy. It was his armored division, following de Gaulle's order, that was the first to enter Paris, which had rebelled against the invaders.
The museum exhibits Jean Moulin's etchings to the poems of Tristan Corbier, underground leaflets and newspapers, propaganda posters of collaborators. In a special oval-shaped room, the walls are turned into fourteen screens, on which footage of the liberation of Paris is recreated - the visitor is immersed in the atmosphere of jubilation of the free city.
The museum is located in the Montparnasse quarter, where art lover Jean Moulin often visited. Here was the command post of General Leclerc on August 25, 1944, on the day of the liberation of the capital.
