Rose Valland’s family archives were handed over this Thursday, September 21 to the Resistance Museum in Grenoble. These documents shed light on the journey of the resistance fighter from Isère who, through her spying work, enabled the restitution of works of art looted by the Nazis during the occupation.
She saved, at the risk of her life, tens of thousands of works of art. And yet, the work of Isère resistance fighter Rose Valland remained in the shadows. Volunteer conservationist at the Jeu de Paume museum in Paris during the Second World War, the young woman had a front-row seat to the spoliation of works of art by the Nazis.
Paintings and sculptures looted from deported Jewish families or stolen from national collections then passed through this museum before being sent to Austria or Germany. Rose Valland then embarked on extensive espionage work, recording all the details of the looting in her notebooks. Writings that are now essential for the restitution of cultural property.
“She did this work without seeking recognition. The characteristic of women who have engaged in resistance actions is that they acted because they found it normal”remarks the director of the Isère Resistance Museum, Alice Buffet. “Rose Valland does so because she sees all these masterpieces leaving and she says to herself that we must remember, that there must be a memory of what was pillaged, despoiled. It is thanks to this work that she did at the Jeu de Paume during the war that she was then able to bring back to France more than 60,000 works of art.”
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Archives of the spy Rose Valland handed over to the Resistance Museum in Grenoble • ©France Télévisions
This extraordinary investigation took her from the property of Hermann Göring, a leading leader under the Third Reich, to salt mines in the USSR where she recovered paintings. Rose Valland spent ten years of her life in Germany to trace the looted works. “Film adventures”, smiles her little cousin, Christine Vernay, determined to keep the memory of the resistance fighter alive. On Thursday, September 21, she presented family archives, study drawings and period photos of Rose Valland to the Resistance Museum in Grenoble.
She wasn’t afraid of anything from the start.
Christine Vernay, little cousin of Rose Valland
in France 3 Alpes
Christine Vernay keeps some childhood memories of her great-aunt. The image of a woman “proud and passionate”resolutely modern, “strong character”. “She wasn’t afraid of anything, from the start”, she remembers. Coming from a modest family from Saint-Etienne-de-Saint-Geoirs, in Isère, nothing destined Rose Valland to climb the ladder in the world of culture, then very masculine.
Daughter of a farrier, from a modest family, she joined the teacher training college in Grenoble before turning to the visual arts, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon then that of the Louvre in Paris. “She had this talent for art”describes Alice Buffet, evoking the young woman’s study drawings, still lifes and artistic nudes.
“She already had this desire to succeed and do better. Move forward”insists Christine Vernay. “She took responsibility for all her choices at a time when this was not at all accepted. She went beyond it and she lived her life as she wanted, which is also a form of exceptional courage”she adds, mentioning her life shared with another woman.
Buried in her native village in 1980, Rose Valland experienced little light during her lifetime. Recipient of the Legion of Honor and the Resistance Medal, she is more recognized abroad where she was decorated. “She was not rewarded for her qualities, but she was very proud to be where she was”assures his little cousin.
The archives that mark the extraordinary journey of Rose Valland will document a life journey dedicated to art. A space will be dedicated to him in the future Resistance Museum which will be installed in the former courthouse in Grenoble, not before 2026.
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