P-O Life reader and contributor, James Trollope, bought an old photo album at auction and discovered a treasure trove…
O’Leary radioed London with the message “Pas plus de bateau que de beurre au cul!”
The former ‘Maison Mazard’ in Le Soler, now destroyed, was a safe house for Dutch refugees, Jews and resistance members fleeing the nazis in the 1930s.
Thanks to this exhibition, the nomads’ story is finally being told.
We will be judged as a society on how well we treat them.
The war is nearing it’s end. The Germans occupying France are on edge and expecting the Allied Invasion at any time.
Robert Hébras Lanois, the last survivor of the horrendous massacre of the village of Oradour, has died at the age of 97. (February 2023).
Symbol of Catalan resistance during WW2, the village of Valmanya on the CD 13 coming from Vinça, was totally destroyed by the Germans in August 1944, not long before the liberation, in reprisal against resistance fighters operating in the area .
Cultural artefacts have long been targeted by armies as a demonstration of their superiority, dominance and power. The Spanish Civil War and WW2 were no different. Collectors and curators were therefore anxious to protect their cultural heritage.
You would think that the shameful, over crowded camps on the P-O beaches would be unlikely places for art to flourish….READ ON
If he had not left behind him a few drawings of his horrific stay in the French concentration camps, Civil War refugee Josep Bartoli (1910-1995) would have remained just another anonymous fighter amongst thousands who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom. Visit the exhibition at the Memorial de Rivesaltes
