My Project

I am developing this blog as my presentation for the Scottish Baccalaureate. As a feminist, I have always been interested in women's side of history, a side which is often overlooked and forgotten about. When first thinking about the French Resistance I knew names such as Charles De Gaulle, Jean Moulin or Raymond Aubrac; surely women had to have been a part of this movement too? I worked on the assumption that because men lead the battles, the physical confrontations, that women must have played the underground roles. I began my research online, discovering that the majority of women's stories from this time were available exclusively in French, though overall the most talked about stories of Resistance action remained those of the men. After exploring the scarce internet resources, I went to Lyon, the Resistance centre of World War Two France. I have explored the archives of Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance, and Montluc Prison in Lyon to find the stories featured. Upon returning to Scotland, I have begun translation work to allow these French stories to be shared with the rest of the world. These women played diverse roles in the Resistance movement: they hid escaped prisoners; they delivered messages; they recruited agents; they distributed propaganda; they were brave fighters and their stories deserve to be told.

10 January 2016

Suzanne Vallon

When they were forced to leave France because their resistance activities had been discovered, Suzanne Vallon and her husband fled to London. Then she was sent to North Africa to work as an ophthalmologist. Because she wanted to continue to help the Resistance and fight for the freedom of her country, she was able to accompany allied troops who were marching north to free France. 
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