Four students from the Charles de Gaulle high school in Dijon, will go this Thursday, January 27 to the Auschwitz memorial in Poland as part of the 77th anniversary of the international day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. These 17-year-old high school students were invited by the delegation of Prime Minister Jean Castex.
They found out a week before the trip. Charlotte Poux, Elsa Grandgérard, Jennifer Jeppesen and Mylan Marinozzi will go to the Auschiwtz memorial in Poland this Thursday, January 27. These four young people aged 17 are educated at the Lycée Charles de Gaulle in Dijon. They will be accompanied by their history and geography teacher, Dimitri Vouzelle. These students from Dijon are among the twelve middle and high school students from France selected to take part in this trip.
–
As part of the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp under Nazi Germany, Prime Minister Jean Castex will travel to Poland with Gérard Darmanin, Minister of the Interior and Roselyne Bachelot, Minister of Culture. This government delegation will be accompanied in particular by two deportees, Elie Buzyn and Ginette Kolinka. The Prime Minister’s services therefore wished to select students from all over France for this symbolic trip.
As soon as they enter high school, these four students work on several historical projects. They began in second class a study entitled “Children and adolescents in the Shoah”. This study consists of working on works and archives on people from Dijon who survived or died during the Second World War. It was their history-geography teacher and their literature teacher who selected them to take part in this trip. “We relied on their involvement. Since the second, they have been invested in projects. For example, they went to the house of Izieu (a memorial of Jewish children exterminated in Ain, editor’s note). They had already thought about this question. explains Dimitri Vouzelle, their history and geography teacher.
–
Charlotte Poux is in her final year specializing in geopolitics and dance. She is passionate about photography. Even if she is delighted to have been selected by the services of Matignon, her motivation is above all to go there to collect herself.. “It is above all to honor the memory of the deportees, of the women, of the children who died. It will make me grow”. For her part, Elsa Grandgérard, a final year student in geopolitics and Latin, sees this trip as an opportunity to meet a survivor of the Auschwitz camp. “When we learned that there was Ginette Kolinka, we were super happy because I never met her. I read his book and found it to be surprisingly easy to read.” Elsa explains.
–
This is not the first time that these high school students have visited a concentration camp memorial. A few weeks ago, they went to the Bergen-Belsen and Nuremberg camps. “It is true that Auschwitz is another stage because there are many more testimonies in particular than other camps” according to Jennifer Jeppesen, also in geopolitics class. Finally, Mylan Marinozzi in SES final wishes to pay tribute to his history-geography teacher on the work carried out over the past two years. “It’s a real recognition of all his efforts but also of our work. But it wouldn’t have been possible without him.” explains the young man.
These Dijon high school students will leave this Wednesday, January 26 and return this Friday, January 28.
–
