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Teenagers or young adults born in the 1920’s and 1930’s, the young people of the 1940’s were raised both in remembrance of their elders – who were, for many of them, sacrificed during the first world conflict – and in the dream of eternal peace, of the ”war to end all wars”.

However, the economic crisis of the thirties and the awareness of rising risks due to totalitarianism had already changed the living conditions of these young people, leading the eldest ones to engage into various social and political battles. At the dawn of the Second World War, communist youth, Christian working youth, young CGT trade unionists were already organized groups with a rich experience of struggle and protest. The Popular Front and the social laws of 1936 had also strongly impressed the youth of popular circles. Paid holidays, the rise of youth hostels and the beginnings of a leisure society joined the range of the inter-war movements. Thus, members of youth hostels movement, scouts and Catholic action movements allowed youth people, for the first time perhaps, to assert themselves autonomously.

Through a route taking the thread of a young girl’s diary – Denise Domenach-Lallich aged 15 in 1939 – Generation 40 portrays a youth who was special and full of contrasts.

In 1940, pupils, students, young workers, young farmers from well-to-do or popular classes formed a heterogeneous group, the one of a youth who was subject to incessant slogans and solicitations, called to be transformed by the experience of the war and the Occupation.

Documents, photographs, journals and letters from famous (Hélène Berr, Guy Môquet) or anonymous people as well as recently collected audio testimonies reveal what it meant to be young in the heart of such a troubled period. They allow to understand the complex realities lived by this generation, to hear the singularity of their experiences.

Documents, photographies, journaux et lettres de personnages célèbres (Hélène Berr, Guy Môquet) ou anonymes ainsi que témoignages audio récemment collectés révèlent ce qu’impliquait le fait d’être jeune au coeur d’une période aussi troublée. Ils permettent de saisir les réalités complexes vécues par cette génération, d’entendre la singularité de leurs expériences.