Inauguration of the F. Russo Belvedere

Le Belvédère Frédéric Russo, inauguré sur le Port d’Hyères le 6 mai 2025 lui rend hommage, face à la mer. Un hommage à la liberté pour que les plus jeunes se souviennent et choisissent avec discernement leurs propres combats.

To be open-minded ... to think for yourself ... to be wary of extremes and populism ... to be tolerant of others, their differences, cultures and religions. And today, to be wary of false information ... especially that conveyed by social networks.
This could be the moral of the story of Frédéric Russo, the young Austrian who left Austria when he was just 18 and his country was already reeling under German boots, on his birthday: March 13, 1928.
To avoid being drafted into the Wehrmacht, he fled to border countries, seeking to create "a buffer country" between his own and his host, learning the language of the host country, discovering its customs and food, making new friends and being adopted by new families.
He enlisted in 1941 and fought in North Africa. From 1943, he fought in Italy, before landing in Provence in August 1944.
On August 21, 1944, more than 80 years ago, this young liberator took part in the Liberation of Hyères. Fiercely independent and driven by a spirit of justice as much as discretion, he would say nothing of his battles, the losses of his friends and the last-minute Resistance fighters... but he did reveal himself in a late memoir that the Association des Amis de Port-Cros is publishing today, under the title "From Vienna to Hyères".