Beyond the images of crowds thrown onto the roads and the lasting trauma of a surprise defeat, what do we really know about the defeat of 1940, which took place already 80 years ago? Even today, we perceive this humiliating rout as “inevitable”, without realizing that our collective memory is distorted by the collaborationist propaganda that followed. To use the words of Gilles Vergnon, historian and curator of the exhibition “A strange defeat? May-June 1940", it is rather a "strange victory" German. It is the whole point of this educational journey in the rooms of the Center for the History of Resistance and Deportation (CHRD) in Lyon to question the myths and counter-myths linked to this event. This successful exhibition makes it possible to synthesize the quintessence of innumerable conferences and works by historians who, for the past twenty years, have challenged a truncated vision of this history.
A strange defeat? May-June 1940
Location Center for the History of Resistance and Deportation, 14 avenue Berthelot, 69007 Lyon
Web www.chrd.lyon.fr
Date Until March 21, 2021