Heroes of the Resistance is a set of twenty-three stamps issued from 1957 to 1961 by La Poste, commemorating 27 members of the French Resistance who died during the Occupation of France between 1940 and 1945 (apart from Edmond Debeaumarché, who died in 1959). Of the 27, two were Catholic monks and nuns and three were women.[ citation needed ]
A commemorative stamp is a postage stamp, often issued on a significant date such as an anniversary, to honor or commemorate a place, event, person, or object. The subject of the commemorative stamp is usually spelled out in print, unlike definitive stamps which normally depict the subject along with the denomination and country name only. Many postal services issue several commemorative stamps each year, sometimes holding first day of issue ceremonies at locations connected with the subjects. Commemorative stamps can be used alongside ordinary stamps. Unlike definitive stamps that are often reprinted and sold over a prolonged period of time for general usage, commemorative stamps are usually printed in limited quantities and sold for a much shorter period of time, usually until supplies run out.
La Poste is a postal service company in France, operating in Metropolitan France as well as in the five French overseas departments and the overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Because of bilateral agreements, La Poste also has the responsibility of mail services in Monaco through La Poste Monaco and in Andorra alongside the Spanish company Correos.
The French Resistance was the collection of French movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and the collaborationist Vichy régime during the Second World War. Resistance cells were small groups of armed men and women, who, in addition to their guerrilla warfare activities, were also publishers of underground newspapers, providers of first-hand intelligence information, and maintainers of escape networks that helped Allied soldiers and airmen trapped behind enemy lines. The men and women of the Resistance came from all economic levels and political leanings of French society, including émigrés, academics, students, aristocrats, conservative Roman Catholics, and also citizens from the ranks of liberals, anarchists and communists.
