Projects for the year 2005-2006: the reactions of the students
A time for exchange and discussion is generally necessary upon returning from the study trip to give students the floor. The passage through writing is also a way to express personal feelings and reflections. Written spontaneously or at the request of the teachers, the texts of the high school students testify to the impact of the trip and the meeting with the former deportees.
Auschwitz
After discovering the site of Auschwitz in February 2006, students from Terminale Bac Pro accounting secretariat of the vocational high school Louise Michel de Ruffec made a travel diary combining photographs and personal comments.
Lycée Professionnel Louise Michel - Ruffec (16)
The sensation of going to a place as gloomy as Auschwitz was, just thinking about it, difficult to accept. We walked on the trail of a million deaths for which the existence in this camp was temporary. In any case, the illusions one has at the idea of going to a concentration and extermination camp are very far from reality. Indeed, facing the camp of Birkenau one experiences a feeling of humility and frustration as well as great respect for what may have happened there.
In books, we often hear about extermination but it is difficult to imagine the feelings felt by the deportees when they arrived at this camp. This trip may have given me a small idea of the suffering and fear these people felt upon their arrival. Seeing this immense expanse of empty buildings left me speechless: it was at that moment that I realized the number of people who passed here.
Sébastien Martinet, Lycée Saint Paul, Vannes (56)
I think that this day will forever remain etched in my memory. It allowed me to better understand everything that happened there. Thanks to this day I was able to answer some of my questions. And now I think I will be able to better explain this moment of history to others.
Jenna Prou, Lycée Saint Paul, Vannes (56)
This trip to Auschwitz allowed me to better understand and see with my own eyes what our teacher had told us and what we had seen on video. By being on the spot it really allows to realize the atrocious things that happened in these camps. In the morning, during the visit to Auschwitz II Birkenau, I was impressed by the grandeur of the site, but I could not imagine that I was in a camp where people had been deported to be exploited, then killed in the chain in a horrible way without any mercy. In the afternoon, during the visit to Auschwitz I, I was marked by the objects that were displayed in the museum, shoes, suitcases, hair... telling oneself that all this had belonged to people. It left without words. Just like the end of the visit, when we entered the gas chamber and saw the crematory ovens, it was weird to be there, the smell and darkness of the room gave me a strange feeling.
Bertrand Tarroux, Lycée professionnel Louis Rascol, Albi (81)
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