The Bunker Museum of La Rochelle was an almost secret place
that was visited by appointment only. During the war, the officers of the
submarines of the Kriegsmarine, had requisitioned the hotel of the foreigners
and built in the basements, under a ceiling of 3.5 meters of concrete, a refuge
of 300 m².
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| Jean-Luc Labor in the Bunker Restaurant |
They went down in case of alarm and soon decided to stay
down there regularly by transforming it into a beer bar, with music and painted
ceilings recalling the seabed with crabs, sirens and fishing nets. The submariners
were considered heroes in the German army and they were entitled to some
adjustments to the normal discipline, such as permission to listen to American
swing music.
In 1984, Jean-Luc Labor found this bunker where only the
paintings on the ceilings had survived. Little by little, like a collection of
stamps, he says, he began to look for the memories of the war years in La
Rochelle. Gradually he transformed it into this amazing place that today brings
together tens of thousands of documents and objects recalling the destiny of
the city and its inhabitants during the second war.
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