Wartime Paris: Spies, Resistance And The Holocaust

Itinerary

4 Day Itinerary

• Day 1

  Local departure by coach, then to our hotel in the Paris area for a three-night stay.

• Day 2 - SOE in Paris - French Resistance

  Beginning at the site of former SOE Safe Houses in Paris, we look at the story of Noor Inayat-Khan GC – the ‘Princess Spy’, we then walk to the nearby Gestapo Headquarters in Avenue Foch, where we hear the details of how the occupation was underpinned by their sinister and often deadly hands. Continuing to the Arc de Triomphe, we look at France from Defeat in 1940 to Liberation in 1944. We then look at the French Resistance battle in central Paris at the Hotel de Ville in August 1944, and then examine the darker chapters of Paris’ occupation, discussing the French victims of the Holocaust, and seeing the Memorial to those who were Righteous Among the Nations, as well as those who were deported from France with a visit to the Deportation Memorial. We end the day with a visit to Mont Valerian, seeing the impressive National Resistance Memorial, and the Visitors’ Centre discussing the Resistance fighters who died for a Free France as well as examining the story of their leader, Jean Moulin. In the evening you have some free-time in central Paris close to the Eiffel Tower.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 3 - Holocaust in Paris - Liberation 1944

  This morning we travel to Drancy and continue our look at the Holocaust in France, seeing the memorials and the site of the Detention Camp here. We then see a new Holocaust Memorial site at Bobigny, where the trains took French Jews to the Concentration Camps. Later we visit Père Lachaise Cemetery for the Holocaust and Resistance Memorials, looking out how those who died were commemorated. We finish with a look at the Allied entry into Paris in 1944 seeing the excellent Paris Liberation Museum.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 4

  Return home.

  Meals - Breakfast

Accommodation