 During the expanded, pre-liberation occupation of France by Nazi Germany, Salies was on the border between the occupied zone and the free zone.Between September 1941 and the summer of 1942, Jean Anouilh wrote his famous adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy, "Antigone" in the comparatively idyllic setting of Salies-de-Bearn, relieved of the invader's presence, the evening curfews and the deprivations of Paris.The play premiered in Occupied Paris in February 1944.