HISTORY & PHOTOGRAPHY

Realized in the 70th of the Normandy landing of the allied troops and the liberation of Paris, the exhibition consists of 54 photos that tell the D-Day, the advance of the allies towards Paris from the North and the South, the battle in the streets of French capital between the Nazi troops and the French partisans, and finally the liberation of the city. Many of the images were taken by unknown American and British photographers, framed in the allied or sent forces of newspapers and agencies, which documented the D-Day, the American advance, the liberation of the French cities and the battle of Paris. The Photographers  who followed  the allied troops were then joined by French photographers, of whom very little is known, who reported the clashes between partisans and Germans in the streets and the revenges on who were considered collaborators of Nazis - the men beaten, imprisoned or executed directly, the women head-shaved  in the squares and exposed to the scorn and violence of the crowd. Not all French photographers who documented the liberation of the country will remain without a name: the Seeberger brothers, who will become famous in the post-war period for their fashion photographs, will also resume the uprising in Paris.

 

The Battle of Normandy began on 6 June 1944 and ended on 25 August of the same year with the liberation of Paris. The largest army ever set up on the largest fleet in history attacked, at the dawn of D-Day, the Atlantic Wall - the impressive system of German fortified defenses protecting the continent. The American, British and Canadian divisions were thrown into the fray on the beaches of northern France. At their side the French armies of the free army of De Gaulle. In front of them the German army, still fearsome but in evident crisis of determination and in strong confusion in front of the biggest invasion from the sea ever designed by an army. Allies, once landed on the continent, were supported by the French partisans , engaged in sabotage actions and in the clashes in the cities with the German occupation forces. Paris began its personal insurrection on August 19, 1944. After a week of hard fighting and 1,500 fallen among the rioters, the symbolic city was liberated and welcomed, celebrating, the Allies. With the German armies fleeing from France, the fall of Hitler became only a matter of time. The great Anglo-American race began to arrive in Berlin before Stalin's Red Army. And not just to defeat Germany definitively. The stakes, in fact, were also to save the Western world from the Soviet madness after the racial madness of the Third Reich.

 

Curated by:

Alessandro Luigi Perna

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A production of:

Eff&Ci - Facciamo Cose (We Do Things)

 

Pictures of:

Rue des Archives / Bridgeman

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background photo of the page © Rue des Archives / Bridgeman