August 25 is Liberation Day in France, commemorating the date in 1944 when the French capital was freed from Nazi occupation, under which had been held for more than four years.

The French Resistance movement was one of the most active and well-coordinated counterforces of the Second World War. It included all strata of French society which sabotaged the electrical power grid, transport facilities, and telecommunications networks. It expediated the Allied movement throughout Europe and facilitated the invasion of Normandy.

All this was done while under a heavy burden by their German occupiers. Inflation, food shortages, malnutrition, labor shortages, and conscripted labor were in full force throughout the occupation.

On 8 September 1945, the U.S. Post Office issued a three-cent stamp commemorating the liberation of Paris and the capturing of the Ludendorff Bridge. Other countries with stamps commemorating the bridge’s capture, include Nicaragua, Guyana, Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. This image was created by the United States Post Office and is in the public domain.