Gilles Vergnon,Le Vercors. Histoire et mémoire d'un maquis. Paris: Atelier/Ouvrières, 2002. 256 pp. 21€.

Abstract

Travellers zooming up or down the Rhône Valley in the TGV Méditerranée, when passing through the area on a reasonably clear day, will undoubtedly notice an impressive mountain range suddenly rising from the low-level terrain of the Rhône Valley east of Valence. When this reviewer crossed on foot what is now known as Le Vercors in a week-long gruelling hike in 1984, the ubiquity of historical markers denoting the precise locations where resistance fighters had been shot and killed impressed itself upon the two trekkers holding German passports already during the very first day. In France, the Vercors has become a lieu de mémoire and incorporates a great variety of aspects and interpretations of the French resistance experience in an almost exemplary manner.