While firsthand accounts can be subject to personal bias, they remain one of the most riveting and powerful ways to understand a historical event, and the person who lived through it. There are many memoirs about the Nazi Occupation and the Holocaust in general because it was a time of such acute suffering and incomprehensible brutality. Many who have lived through it have written about their personal experiences during those years — often as a way to remember persons lost to them or persons who helped them to survive. Memoire literally means memory in French. Memoirs are similar to autobiographies, but they are often limited to a specific time period and are not always chronologically structured to cover the entire lifespan of an individual. Biographies are of course accounts of a person's life written by someone else — usually after consulting a vast array of archival materials including the subject's own journals or diaries (if they exist), personal letters, and correspondences. Témoignages are statements made by individuals, often during interviews conducted immediately after an impactful event. After WWII, some such interviews were conducted under the auspices of the Comité d'Historie de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale in Paris. Past interviews, and sometimes interviews conducted by the authors themselves, can also lend important insights. Often these accounts will conflict with one another as time goes on and it is the duty of the biographer to point out these inconsistencies and do their best to put forward as full and objective a portrait as is possible.

"The Resistance did not consist of networks created by the Allies on our soil, but in the spontaneous rising of Frenchmen, the simple, voluntary movement upon which the future of our nation depended."

-The Unknown Warriors, page 132.

Primary sources are documents that originate from the time period under study. All of these sources are invaluable for gaining a full understanding of the history and the many viewpoints and perspectives that create historical record. Factual data, personal narratives, and visits to historical sites and memorials are all important parts of understanding the full historical context. For example, the section in this guide about WWII Memorials lists important battle sites and monuments that you can visit to make the full extent of the events of WWII more palpable. Talking to those who have lived it firsthand is informative and often incredibly humbling. The Library of Congress Veterans History Project has made this possible by collecting, recording and preserving firsthand recollections of U.S. Military veterans who served from WWI through more recent conflicts and peacekeeping missions. It is vital to compare all of the various sources available and apply critical thinking to create the full landscape of what occurred.

Databases can be one of the best ways to access primary documents as well as relevant journal articles. Many of these sources fall outside of copyright usage laws making them easier to access online through digital open access libraries such as HathiTrust External and Internet Archive External . Using subscription databases will require being in a library or research institution that subscribes to these costly services. Aside from the Library of Congress, in Washington DC the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum External has some important resources on the French Resistance.

Resources at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC

• France Pendant la Guerre 1939–1945: Résistance et Journaux de Vichy (Voices from Wartime France 1939–1945: Clandestine Resistance and Vichy Newspapers) Provides access to the British Library’s collection of resistance, clandestine and collaborationist newspapers and other periodicals that were smuggled to Britain during Germany’s occupation of France.
• Jewish Underground Resistance: David Diamant Collection David Diamant is the pseudonym of David Erlich, a Jewish communist and committed member of the underground resistance during World War II. This collection consists of original documents collected by Diamant over a period of approximately 30 years, dealing primarily with the Jewish segment of the French underground resistance; many of the documents originate with communist groups, and some deal with Polish groups. Most of the documents are in French, while some are in Yiddish. NB: The Museum’s archives hold additional collections of materials collected by David Diamant.
• National Socialism, Holocaust, Resistance, and Exile 1933–1945 Includes 450,000 pages of primary and secondary sources from the Nazi period, speeches, SS and Gestapo reports, and organizational handbooks for the Nazi party and civil servants.
• Patriotes aux Armes! (Patriots to Arms!): The Underground Resistance in France, Belgium, Holland, and Italy, 1939–1945 Consists of newspapers, pamphlets, broadsides and other types of publications created by resistance groups in France, Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. Consists largely of French-language materials.

A select bibliography of primary sources, biographies and memoirs in both French and English is further down the page. To search for more titles, use the Library's online catalog for books on this topic using the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSHs) below.

World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, French
World War, 1939-1945--Underground movements--France--Biography
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--France--Personal narratives