CHRD Lyon (Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation)

What CHRD Lyon (Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation) does

CHRD Lyon (Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation) is a municipal history museum established in 1992 under the Ville de Lyon, dedicated to preserving and transmitting the history of the French Resistance and WWII Deportation, with particular focus on Lyon's wartime experience. The museum is symbolically housed in the former École du service de santé militaire at 14 avenue Berthelot, which served as Gestapo headquarters between spring 1943 and 1944 under Klaus Barbie. Its core offering is the permanent exhibition 'Lyon dans la guerre, 1939-1945,' complemented by rotating temporary exhibitions, exclusive screenings of extracts from the 1987 Klaus Barbie trial (authorized uniquely by the Paris High Court), an on-site documentation center, guided and urban tours, and a growing portfolio of digital products including the online collections portal launched July 2025, a podcast series, animated histories, and online exhibitions. The collection comprises approximately 700 filmed first-person testimonies of Resistance members and deportees, archival documents, photographs, and roughly 100 remarkable objects — assets that are not commercially marketed but serve educational, commemorative, and research purposes.

The business model combines municipal funding (as an établissement municipal à caractère culturel) with earned revenue from unit-priced admissions (€4–€8 individual, free for under-18s and select categories), guided tours (€3 individual, €60–€115 group), audioguides (€1), conferences, and urban tours. Commercial revenue is supplemented by online ticketing via tickeasy.com and on-site retail. The go-to-market is event- and experience-driven: CHRD reaches audiences through its website, social media (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn), newsletter, podcast, and educational partnerships, with schools as the primary structured customer segment alongside general public visitors and researchers accessing the documentation center.

Operationally, CHRD is staffed by a team of approximately 11–50 employees organized under Directrice Isabelle Dore-Rive and Secrétaire générale Maud Profit-Roux, covering administration, scientific resources, communication, public services, reception, and exhibition production. The institution is integrated with the Ville de Lyon's broader cultural infrastructure, including a documented partnership with the Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon for research access, and has received academic donations such as the 2015 Pignon-Ernest works from Université catholique de Lyon. There are no venture capital, private equity, or external ownership interests; the entity operates as a public, government-owned cultural establishment.

Name

CHRD Lyon (Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation)

Legal name

Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation

Website

https://chrd.lyon.fr

Company type

Private

Founded year

1992

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

CHRD Lyon is a municipal WWII history museum in Lyon, France, dedicated to the Resistance and Deportation, serving schools, general public visitors, and academic researchers through exhibitions, guided tours, and digital collections, operated as a public cultural establishment under the Ville de Lyon.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

History Museum

NAICS

Museums (71211), Historical Sites (71212), Libraries and Archives (51921)

SIC

Miscellaneous Publishing (2741)

akta.pro primary industry

Museums & Heritage Sites (History, Science, Specialty) (BPAGAHAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Cultural Heritage Institutions (Archives, Historic Houses, Monuments Foundations) (THAJADAI), Public Media Archives, Libraries & Content Preservation (MPABADAL)

Keywords

• History museum
• WWII exhibitions
• Educational programs
• Archival collections
• Cultural heritage

Headquarters

HQ city

Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes

HQ country

France

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Others

Revenue model

1. Museum Entrance Fees: Admission fees for individual and group visitors to permanent and temporary exhibitions
2. Activity Fees: Fees for guided tours, audioguides, conferences, and urban walking tours
3. Municipal Funding: Establishment municipal à caractère culturel under Ville de Lyon, indicating government funding support

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

CHRD Lyon operates a municipal history museum dedicated to the history of the Second World War in Lyon and the surrounding region, with a particular focus on the French Resistance, the deportation of Jews and political opponents, and the role of Lyon as the "Capital of the Resistance." It presents a permanent exhibition, rotating temporary exhibitions, a documentation center holding more than 700 filmed testimonies, school programs, guided tours, urban walking tours, public lectures, podcasts, animated stories, and an online collections portal, all delivered from its premises in the former headquarters of the Gestapo in Lyon.

Product overview

CHRD Lyon is a municipal history museum dedicated to the history of the Resistance and Deportation during World War II, with a primary focus on Lyon. The museum operates a single unified offering centered on its permanent exhibition 'Lyon dans la guerre, 1939-1945' supplemented by rotating temporary exhibitions, educational services, and digital content. Core offerings include the permanent exhibition featuring objects, photographs, archives, and audiovisual testimonies; the Klaus Barbie trial screenings; a documentation center; and guided/urban tours. The museum has expanded into digital services including an online collections portal (launched 2025), podcast series, animated stories, and online resources. Educational programs for schools and public lectures round out the service portfolio.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Permanent Exhibition — Lyon dans la guerre, 1939–1945
• Temporary Exhibitions
• Archive Films of the Klaus Barbie Trial
• Audio Guides
• Guided Tours
• Urban Walking Tours (Visites urbaines)
• School Programs (Programmes scolaires)
• Documentation Center (Centre de documentation)
• Public Lectures and Conferences
• Online Collections Portal (Portail des collections)
• Podcasts
• Animated Stories (Contes animés)

Quantifiable outcome

• 700+ filmed testimonies preserved as primary historical sources

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Ville de Lyon (City of Lyon)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 15 October 1992The CHRD is an establishment municipal à caractère culturel under the Ville de Lyon. The city provides funding, infrastructure (the historic building), and administrative support. The museum was established following a mission assigned by Mayor Michel Noir in 1989 after the Klaus Barbie trial.
• Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon (Lyon Municipal Library)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe CHRD documentation center works with the Lyon Municipal Library. Works available for consultation are listed on the library's website, providing integrated access to research resources.

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Yad Vashem: Israel's official Holocaust memorial and research institution. Comparable archival and educational scope covering the Shoah and Deportation themes that intersect with CHRD's mission.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Washington D.C. living memorial to the Holocaust. Comparable mission (WWII/Holocaust memorial, education, archives), with larger scale and global reach — a benchmark for institutional weight in the WWII-memory sector.
• Imperial War Museums: UK national museum group operating multiple sites covering 20th and21st-century conflict. Broader incumbent in the war-history museum space with overlapping collection-management, exhibition, and educational missions.

Direct peers

• Centre Juno Beach: Canadian WWII museum at Juno Beach, Normandy. Comparable WWII interpretive site with educational programming, archives, and visitor experience — a peer on Allied/Normandy-facing WWII history.
• Musée de la Résistance nationale: Champigny-sur-Marne museum dedicated to French Resistance history. Directly comparable to CHRD in subject matter (French Resistance), collection-based model, educational programs, and historical-site operation.
• Mémorial de la Shoah: Paris-based Holocaust memorial, museum, and documentation center. Overlaps with CHRD on Deportation history, archival mission, and educational programming for schools — making it a closely aligned French peer in the broader WWII/memory space.
• Historial de la Grande Guerre: Péronne museum of the Great War (WWI), operating a comparable permanent exhibition + temporary exhibitions + documentation center model. Same French public-history museum archetype, though focused on WWI rather than WWII.
• Mémorial de Caen: Normandy-based WWII and D-Day history museum and memorial. Like CHRD, it operates a permanent WWII exhibition, archives, educational programs, and temporary exhibitions on20th-century conflict — making it the closest French peer in scale, mission, and visitor model.
• Maison d'Izieu: Memorial museum at the site of the former colony for Jewish children deported in 1944. Comparable site-based memorial, educational programming, and Deportation/Resistance subject matter with similar visitor profile.

Others

• Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon: Strategic partner that catalogues CHRD's documentation-center works and integrates them with broader Lyon research resources. Not a direct competitor but an ecosystem participant enabling academic access to CHRD collections.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/chrdlyon2
• Facebookfacebook.com/communication.chrd
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/chrd-lyon
• Instagraminstagram.com/chrd_lyon

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles6 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about CHRD Lyon (Centre d'Histoire de la Résistance et de la Déportation)