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Paris to celebrate end to Nazi rule 70 years later

FILE-In this photo provided by the U.S. Office of War Information, American troops march down the Champs Elysees, past the Arc de Triomphe, Sept. 12, 1944, as residents of Paris throng the sidewalks to cheer following the liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944. (AP Photo/Richard Boyer, U.S. Office of War Information)
FILE-In this photo provided by the U.S. Office of War Information, American troops march down the Champs Elysees, past the Arc de Triomphe, Sept. 12, 1944, as residents of Paris throng the sidewalks to cheer following the liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944. (AP Photo/Richard Boyer, U.S. Office of War Information)

By Associated Press 5 min read

PARIS (AP) – Her code name was Rainer and she had a gun she called Oscar. Not yet 20, she aimed her weapon at a Nazi officer and shot him to death on a Paris bridge on a Sunday afternoon.

That deed on July 23, 1944, was Madeleine Riffaud’s summons to Parisians to rise up.

“Everyone saw that a young girl on a bicycle can do this,” she recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

Riffaud’s solitary act provided an opening salvo for a popular uprising in Paris, which was spurred by the Allied landings in Normandy following four years of Nazi occupation. When American and French troops liberated the City of Light on Aug. 25, 1944, it came against a backdrop of jubilation and chaos.

On Monday, Paris will mark the 70th anniversary of its freedom from Hitler’s Third Reich with a day of tributes, including an outdoor ball, a speech at City Hall by President Francois Hollande, and a sound and light show re-enacting the day of liberation.