During War II, Lyon was both a centre for the occupying German forces and also a stronghold of French resistance. Here Albert Camus edited Combat , the leading underground paper and Jean Moulin united the scattered elements of spontaneous French resistance to German occupation. The traboules (hidden passageways to protect silk as it was transported between buildings during the rain) were used by Resistance fighters to escape from the Nazis.
Through French literature of the time, we will explore the nature, extent and significance of resistance in Occupied France. Camus's The Stranger (1942) was a groundbreaking exploration of 'the nakedness of man faced with the absurd.' Vercors's novella, The Silence of the Sea (1942), is a patriotic tale of self-deception and of the triumph of passive resistance over evil, was published clandestinely and served to rally a spirit of French defiance. Lyon native and pilot for the Free French Air Force in 1944, Antoine de Saint-Exupery reflects in his luminous memoir Wind, Sand and Stars (1939) on what makes life worth living and who we are or should be.
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