Mémorial de la France Combattante

Sixteen bronze relief sculptures by 16 artists represent France's struggle for liberation - from a Gaullist perspective. Behind an eternal flame, the crypt contains tombs of 16 heroes from 16 French battles in World War II. The memorial was built on the site where members of the Resistance were brought from prisons in Paris. A staircase from within the crypt leads visitors inside the curtain wall, then up around the hill to the chapel where prisoners were locked before execution, and down to the Clairière des Fusillés, the clearing where they were shot. The chapel walls were covered in the prisoners' last graffiti (of which only a small patch remains); it also contains five of the wooden firing posts. More than 1,000 men were shot here (women were deported). A monument by artist Pascal Convert lists the names of the victims, among them Communist politician Gabriel Péri.