Traveling in France: Vichy (Part 2 of 3)

Our visit to Vichy continues.

Vichy has a dark period in its history.  During World War II, a large part of France, including Paris, was occupied by the Germans, starting in 1940.  The rest of French was unoccupied.  The national government of France left Paris and eventually resettled in a city in the unoccupied zone, Vichy.  

Vichy had long been a popular tourist destination for French people living inside metropolitan France (in the Hexagon) and in other French areas, like Algeria.  Visitors would take the cure by drinking Vichy water from local springs and also enjoy Vichy's casinos, opera house, restaurants and other diversions.  Recently, Vichy applied for UNESCO World Heritage Site status as an authentic thermal spa town.  In its heyday, Vichy had many hotel rooms and could easily cater to thousands of visitors, like the government of France and the many embassies that resettled in Vichy in 1940.  

Below is a photograph of one of the tallest buildings in Vichy, a former hotel, that was used during WWII.  

Another building used by the relocated French government is pictured below.  The building, then a hotel, is called the Hôtel du Parc and was used as living quarters for government officials and as government offices.  On the corner of the building, next to the top floor, there is an apartment where Marshal Philippe Petain lived during WWII.  Petain had been a French hero in World War I.  However, things changed during World War II.  As the French chief of state from June 1940 on, he agreed to the armistice following the German army's invasion.  He then led the French government from Vichy.  This collaboration with the Germans was a complicated and unpopular issue that substantially destroyed Petain's good reputation in France. 

Petain's apartment (doorway pictured below) has been unoccupied since he left near end of the war.  It is furnished and preserved as a sort of memorial.

 

Another person also worked in the Hôtel du Parc, in the corner apartment directly below Petain's living quarters.  French politician Pierre Laval served as chief of the government under Petain from 1942 until the war's end.  Below is the doorway of Laval's office.  

Laval collaborated with the Germans, oversaw a French paramilitary force that fought the French resistance and oversaw the mass arrest, deportation and murder of Jews in the free zone.  A marker in front of the Hôtel du Parc  tells part of that story.       

An article in Le Figaro published at the time of our visit also helped tell the story.   The article discusses the 75th anniversary of the collaboration with the Nazi regime.  After decades of the subject being taboo, folks in Vichy are contemplating a museum to shed more light on this period of the city's history.  

Following the end of WWII, both Petain and Laval were eventually arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death for their activities during the war.  Petain's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.  Petain died in 1951.  Laval was executed by firing squad shortly after his trial in 1945.

Today, the Hôtel du Parc is a private residence.  We learned about the Hôtel du Parc and its history because our fiends live in a lovely apartment on the top floor in the corner of the building.  Their apartment is directly above Petain's former apartment.  

Many thanks to Elaine and Jean-Charles for telling us about the history of Vichy and the Hôtel du Parc.

Next Up:  Vichy Water and Vichy Hospitality