2023-06-19 11:00:19
“Touched by your approach, I would like to send you my sincere congratulations and to salute your full mobilization in the remarkable work of memory that you have carried out”. These words are those of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, in a letter addressed to 3rd grade students at Victor Duruy college in Châlons-en-Champagne, on May 30. If, in the first place, the college students believed in a joke from their teacher, the missive decorated with the traditional formulas of use and the handwritten signature of Emmanuel Macron was quickly enough to dispel the doubt.
Copy of the letter from the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, sent on May 30, 2023 to the Victor Duruy college in Châlons-en-Champagne (51)
This sincere correspondence, which takes the place of recognition, follows a program broadcast on the antenna of the local public radio France Bleu Champagne-Ardenne, “A formidable team”, which relays positive initiatives in the region on a daily basis, including students and their teacher of letters Christèle Lomer-Brehier were invited there last April.
This letter, in addition to its honorary dimension, is also the result of an important research work initiated since 2016 with the 3rd grade classes of the Châlons establishment. Entitled “Paths of Memory”, this educational project emanating from a body of teachers from the establishment, seeks to revive the memory of the Jewish deportees, including the young Solange (Sulamite in Hebrew) Ast and her family, too. pupil of the college of the Marne commune and member of the gymnastics club “La Renaissance” whose room bearing his name was inaugurated in 2000 at the Pierre-de-Coubertin sports hall.
Memory works
Deported by convoy n° 60, on October 7, 1943, Solange Ast, then aged 18, died in 1944 in the Auschwitz camps, like her brother, Marc, and her mother, Rachel. Only Alfred, his father, will come out alive. In 2020, the college students of “Duruy” had worked on the production of a biographical notice of Alfred Ast, published at the end of the same year in the Book of the 9,000 deportees from France to Mittelbau-Dora (Cherche-Midi) , a 2,600-page book comprising nearly 3,000 photos and covering 9,000 fates of survivors. This tragic fate, like for so many other victims of the Shoah – the number of Jews murdered during the Shoah is estimated at 6 million (Source: Shoah Memorial) – resonates with Zoé, Valentin, Marceau and other 3rd grade students who organize a sports competition each year, at the end of March, within the premises of the establishment in memory of Solange.
A demonstration “at the level of schoolchildren” supporting other projects carried out with the students such as participation in the European project “Convoy 77” – “Convoy 77” of July 31, 1944 was the last major convoy for the deportation of Jews from Drancy internment camp for Bobigny station bound for the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, listing the biography of the deportees of this death convoy carried by the family, relatives, children and grandchildren of the victims of this genocide.
A “sad pretty story” exhibited in 2024
In 2024, a major exhibition will be held devoted to the correspondence that Solange Ast maintained with her friend Lili during the Occupation, before her arrest by the GESTAPO, in Lyon, in 1943. This painstaking, collective work is accompanied by visits to the places of memory such as the Memorial of the Montluc prison, the house of Izieu (memorial of the exterminated Jewish children), the Memorial of the Shoah in Paris….and of a thorough work of investigation and cross-checking of archives , led by the multidisciplinary team of the Victor Duruy college whose teachers are the figureheads. “We are committed to sharing Solange’s destiny, to making her story shine so that it can be seen and shared by all, together we like to say that it’s a sad-pretty story. Solange was a teenager full of life, she loved to sing, dance, sometimes even skip math lessons…. “, explains Christèle Lomer Brehier.
Eternal Châlonnaise in the soul, Solange Ast, savagely murdered, carries with her all the horror perpetrated during these dark hours of history, only the handwritten letters written before the horror of the mass exterminations testify to a burst of humanity that she shares with Lili: “I am a slow… er and a swing… er emeritus. I twirl, I kick my feet, I shake my finger near my ear zazou and all that to perfection. But don’t think that means my life is all dancing and wildly gay. Oh no ! if I’m so busy this morning it’s because my heart is in Châlons and I rediscover my forgotten gaiety there. And that is what it is all about. Of those lives to remember. “If Mr. Emmanuel Macron is available on March 21, 2024, we would be happy to count him among us for the inauguration of the exhibition” Her name was Solange… We never know…”, slips surreptitiously, Christèle Lomer Brehier. Connections : www.memorialdelashoah.org
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