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*For Lyon, France's wiki page, subsection Modern Lyon, adding to the last paragraph that has a short part talking about WW2*

The Resistance in Lyon

During World War II, Lyon was a center for the occupying Nazi forces with its location in the southern zone located in Free France at the time. The city's location was also a stronghold for the French Resistance (La Résistance in French), because of its overall location as well as the many secret passages known as traboules which enabled people to escape raids from the Gestapo. There were many different resistance groups all over Europe at the time, all in opposition of the Nazis. The French Resistance was a group of men and women who planned planned different tactics of guerrilla warfare as well as published underground newspapers and provided fake identity papers for those who needed them. It was also in Lyon that railway workers set bombs along the train tracks in efforts to delay workers being transported to Germany. General de Gaulle then named Lyon the capital of The Resistance because there was constant action to free France from the Nazi regime.

Klaus Barbie

Another of the main reasons that Lyon was a huge part of WW2 was Klaus Barbie. Barbie was a chief of the Gestapo that was stationed in Lyon. He spoke both French and English explaining his reasoning for being stationed in a French city. He personally tortured and killed anyone the Nazis thought inferior, giving him the name “Butcher of Lyon”.

Barbie was discovered in Bolivia in 1977 having escaped from Germany after the end of the war. It wasn't until 1987, he was judged for crimes against humanity and sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity. Nine jurors and three judges found Barbie guilty of the 341 separate charges that were brought against him at the court in Lyon. The 73-year old former Gestapo chief was accused of deporting 842 people – mainly Jews – to concentration camps during the Second World War.

Lucie Aubrac

Aubrac, though not the most world renowned hero of WW2, was a key player in the French Resistance of Lyon. She was born in a city outside of Lyon called Maçon in 1912 and went to Université de Sorbonne in Paris studying history and geography. Her studies in Paris is what lead her to meet her later husband Raymond Samuel, a young engineer in Paris at the time. Together they moved to Lyon, France. It was there that they joined The Resistance party. The Resistance party in Lyon, though not isolated to only in Lyon, is the most infamous group with members such as Jean Moulin who are renowned French icons. As a result of their work in The Resistance, Lucie and her husband Raymond changed their last name to Aubrac because Raymond was Jewish and Samuel, being a Jewish last name, would put a target on their backs. From then on, they were known as Lucie and Raymond Aubrac. Together they participated in the clandestine newspaper and fake identity documents.

At the end of 1942 all France was occupied by Germany and Lyon was the capital for the head of the gestapo, Klaus Barbie. He was nicknamed "the butcher of Lyon" for torturing French prisoners. And in March 1943, Raymond was imprisoned, under a fake identity of Claude Ermelin, for buying forbidden goods on the black market but the Nazis were unaware that he was a participant in The Resistance. Lucie tried many times to free her husband, once by approaching Barbie herself and explaining that she was pregnant with Claude Ermelin's child but they were not married. She asked Barbie to allow her to marry him to legitimize her child. The plan that ultimately lead to success was to free him was to attack during the transport of the prisoners. Lucie and fellow members of The Resistance succeeded in not only freeing Raymond but also other Resistance leaders from the Gestapo.

Montluc Prison

Raymond Aubrac was imprisoned in Montluc which is in Lyon as well as Jean Moulin which is still a monument in the city today. It is estimated that over 15,000 people, men, women and children, were imprisoned in Montluc and over 900 of them were executed within its walls, all members of The Resistance, Jews, or others were then interned there. Many of them were tortured at the headquarters of the Gestapo, shot or massacred in the Lyon region, or deported to the concentration and extermination camps. Montluc was liberated on 24 August 1944 by FFI troops, when resistance leader Colonel Köenig, profiting from the chaos reigning in Lyon at the time, entered the prison in a stolen German Army car disguised as a Gestapo officer and persuaded the Commandant to free the prisoners, saying that the order had come from Gestapo Commander Klaus Barbie. At the end of the war, German collaborators, militiamen and war criminals were imprisoned pending trial, including that of the Gestapo in 1954.