Conférence "L'engagement et la place des femmes dans la libération de la Bretagne : juin 1944 - mai 1945"

As part of the temporary exhibition "Résistantes en Bretagne 1940-1944", on Sunday June 14, at 3pm, the museum will welcome Coralie Guého for a talk on women's involvement in the liberation of Brittany: June 1944 - May 1945.

In Brittany, very few women members of the Resistance chose to join the army in the summer of '44, most of them very young nurses or liaison and intelligence officers for the Resistance.

The status of women before the Second World War, and the way Resistance fighters were trained, left little room for the role of combatant. Some photographs show them armed, but these images must be approached with caution, as they are often part of a retrospective staging of the Liberation.

Nevertheless, women were present in large numbers alongside FFI contingents, which were gradually reorganized into regiments: mainly as medical auxiliaries or secretaries, intelligence officers, others as leaders of mutual aid networks, particularly in the environment of French units on the Atlantic fronts. At a time when clandestinity was being lifted, and women were being given a political place, their commitment became official in the eyes of all.

Coralie Guého holds a professional degree in Heritage Tourism, after studying History at the University of Rennes 2. She has been a cultural mediator at the Musée de la Résistance en Bretagne since 2021. Deeply involved in the memory associations, she is particularly interested in the place of women during the Second World War. Her talk will shed light on this aspect of history that is still too often overlooked.

Org. Musée de la Résistance en Argoat