New Central-Western Republic – 03/16/2006 (website)
Chinon
High school students from Cugnot “marked” by their visit to Auschwitz
( 03/16/2006)
They have been working for several months on the Shoah. Today, upon returning from the Polish camp, they are really putting themselves ‘in the shoes of the deportees. Testimonies.
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"Arbeit macht frei" : a phrase that today makes one’s back shiver.
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World War II, they started studying it in middle school. And, like anyone else, they did not fail to discover different reports on this tragic period for humanity. On the small screen, they were also able to see movies about the issue.
So, when asked if they wanted to work more deeply on the subject, specifically on concentration camps and the duty of memory, these students from the Joseph-Cugnot vocational high school in Chinon (first year of BEP driving) answered in the affirmative, with their professors Claudine Guérin (letters and history) and Olivier Kappes (English), at the request of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah (*). It was last September.
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A few weeks later, the good news came: their educational project had been selected among several dozen other files presented at the Orléans-Tours academy.
High school students and teachers have not spared their efforts since then. They studied (and continue to do so) these years of conflict. In January, they met Raoul Dhumeaux, who was deported to Mauthausen. Last month, he went to the Shoah Memorial in Paris.
And a few days ago, about twenty of these high school students, supervised by three adults, flew from Tours to Poland, to the camps of Auschwitz and its region.
On the spot, they discovered the vestiges of human horror: crematoria, ovens, gas chambers or all kinds of objects that once belonged to deportees, found during the liberation of the camps.
The Chinonais were guided by Irène Hajos, deported in 1944 because she was a Hungarian Jew. She had been interned with all her family (parents, siblings, uncle and aunt, cousins): she is the only survivor. Despite being 84 years old and having difficulty walking, "she continues to bear witness," says Claudine Guérin.
The high school students did not remain insensitive to this trip to Poland. What struck Julien the most: "Going under this inscription 'Arbeit macht frei' (work makes you free), which I had seen in photos until now, made me feel strange. I put myself in the shoes of a deportee.” Same amazement for Bastien: "One can better imagine, by seeing a camp like that, the atrocities that could have occurred during the war."
Vivien, for his part, now appreciates better the extent of Nazi barbarism: "Despite all the photos and various films on the theme of deportation [...] I remain totally amazed by the immensity of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp." And Quentin to conclude: "I just have one word to say to these people who were massacred, tortured, killed. That’s the word respect!"
During the visit to the camps, a minute of silence was observed in front of the Auschwitz-Birkenau monument. There were "the people from the Memorial, deportees, and young people. Not a word. The high school students lowered their heads and did not move anymore" as a sign of tribute, says Mrs. Guérin who adds that it was then asked to the Chinonais "to take over", to "become the witnesses of the witnesses".
The work of high school students does not stop there. With their teachers, they will continue their research. A CD-ROM is even being considered for testimony. In the meantime, they will again tread on the lands of horror: the camp de la Lande, in Monts, as well as the martyr village of Maillé or the camp of Montreuil-Bellay.
William RICHARD
(*) catastrophe in Hebrew.
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