The Resistance Museum in Romans-sur-Isère will soon be nothing more than a distant memory. Created in 1972 by former resistance fighters, the museum presented documents and objects from the local Second World War until 2021, before its closure. It occupied 250 m² in the former Visitation convent.
A few days ago, during the last municipal council of Marie-Hélène Thoraval’s mandate, the municipal majority voted to transfer all of the collections to the Vassieux-en-Vercors site, around fifty kilometers from Romans-sur-Isère (57,000 inhabitants). The municipal majority decided to give another use, still unknown, to the museum premises.
Under the windows of the town hall, this Monday, December 15, around a hundred people demonstrated against this vote, denouncing an affront to local history. But Laurent Jacquot, deputy delegate for historical heritage, recalls that “of the 1,434 pieces in the collection, only 48 had direct links with the war and the deportation to Romans. ».
The decision to close dates back to 2021. According to the town hall, the museum had become ” obsolete “ and needed to be rethought. She justifies the closure in particular by a drop in attendance. This decision then caused a certain stir. Locals took legal action; an appeal was filed before the administrative court of Grenoble in 2021 which has not yet ruled. In 2023, a national petition for reopening has collected more than 31,500 signatures. On May 10, 2023, on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of a major anti-STO demonstration in 1943, around fifty people gathered in front of the Romans-sur-Isère station to demand the reopening of the museum.
