“We don't come away indifferent”: a class from the Paul-Valéry high school in Sète returned with emotion from Auschwitz-Birkenau

The TG4 class of the Paul-Valéry high school at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp. Midi Libre – DR

On Thursday, January 16, at 5:30 in the morning, high school students from all over Occitanie took a plane from Montpellier, bound for Krakow. Among them, a final year class from the Paul-Valéry high school in Sète, who had gone to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau site, a few days before the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camps.

“It was a rather hard journey mentally. This place was charged with emotion. When I arrived there, I felt my heart suddenly become heavier and heavier. You don't leave indifferent.” Some feelings of the young people, written on a loose sheet of paper, given to their history-geography teacher Yoram Azerad, a week after their trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The teacher confides that he “hadn't seen the students since their field trip and that letting them write anonymously or not is sometimes easier than talking.”

Day Trip

Twenty-four hours to go to the concentration camp and back, “it's quick”, confides Lohan, one of the high school students on the trip.“I would have liked to stay at least a few more days.” A long, but quick, visit to a place steeped in history. Each student comes back with different feelings, even if some points are similar in their testimonies: “It was huge”, “They had wooden beds that we could touch, we are far from our cozy bed in the morning” or again “I was uncomfortable“.

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A trip made possible thanks to the class project

“To participate in this trip organized by the Region, it was necessary to present a project and be drawn at random”, explains the history-geography teacher who accompanied the students on the concentration camp. He continues:  "I did some research in the municipal and departmental archives. I came across documents indicating the places used in Sète during the Second World War, as well as the lists of Jews deported during the roundup of August 26, 1942." 

The students' project therefore consisted of carrying out research to understand the use of these places and the fate of all these deportees. All this work was then brought together in an application, IZI, in the form of a tourist guide with explanatory audio and photos, produced solely by the students.

A strong awareness on site

Crossing the snow-covered camp allowed some to visualize and imagine what was happening.“We walk exactly where there were dead people… It makes you want to escape”, Gabriel testifies. It was also the buildings, the killing chambers and the vision of the horror up close that gave the high school students the opportunity to become fully aware of where they were.

Mona, one of the young people participating in the trip, explains that it was only once she saw “the shaved hair of all these dead people”, that she really became aware, “of the whole almost industrial organization of the killing”. Lohan agrees: “It's always more telling to see it all in real life, even if we knew what to expect from the classes.”

Today, these young people are witnessing a part of History. Mona knows she has to talk about it because she now realizes “that the survivors will soon no longer be here to do it“. Lohan, for his part, has already talked about it every day since his return.

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