“Wonderful work of memory”: when Emmanuel Macron congratulates the students of Chalon College

“Wounded by your approach, I would like to send you my sincere congratulations and welcome your full mobilization in the wonderful work of memory you have done.” These are the words of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, in a letter addressed to the 3rd grade students of the Victor Durui College in Châlons-en-Champagne on May 30th. If, firstly, college students believed the joke of their teacher, then the message, decorated with traditional formulas of use and Emmanuel Macron’s handwritten signature, quickly dispelled doubts.

This sincere correspondence, which replaces recognition, follows a program broadcast on the antenna of the local public radio France Bleu Champagne-Ardenne, “Formidable Team”, which relays daily positive initiatives in the region, including students and their literature teacher Christelle Laumer-Breillet was invited there in April last year.

This letter, in addition to its honorific value, is also the result of an important research work started since 2016 with the 3rd grade classes of Chalons. Coming from a group of Establishment teachers, this educational project, called Paths of Memory, aims to revive the memory of deported Jews, including young Solange (Shulamita in Hebrew) Ast and her family, a college student. from the commune of Marne and a member of the gymnastic club “La Renaissance”, whose hall, bearing his name, was opened in 2000 in the gymnasium of Pierre de Coubertin.

Memory works

Deported by convoy No. 60 on October 7, 1943, Solange Ast, then 18 years old, died in 1944 in the Auschwitz camps, as did her brother Mark and her mother Rachel. Only Alfred, his father, will get out alive. In 2020, the students of the Durui College worked on the creation of a biographical note by Alfred Ast, published at the end of the same year in the Book of 9000 deportees from France in Mittelbau-Dora (Cherche-Midi). a 2,600 page book containing almost 3,000 photographs and telling the fate of 9,000 survivors. This tragic fate, like many other victims of the Holocaust – the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust is estimated at 6 million (Source: Holocaust Memorial) – resonates with Zoe, Valentin, Marceau and other 3rd grade students who organize a sports competition every year, at the end of March, in the premises of the Solange memory institution.

Demonstration “at the level of schoolchildren” in support of other projects carried out with students, such as participation in the European project “Convoy 77” – “Convoy 77” of July 31, 1944 was the last major convoy to deport Jews from Drancy. internment camps at Bobigny station on their way to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, listing the biographies of those deported from this death convoy carried by the families, relatives, children and grandchildren of the victims of this genocide.

“A Sad Beautiful Story”, exhibited in 2024

In 2024, there will be a major exhibition dedicated to the correspondence that Solange Aste had with her friend Lily during the occupation, before her arrest by the Gestapo, in Lyon, in 1943. This painstaking, collective work is accompanied by visits to places of remembrance such as the Montluc Prison Memorial, the Izier House (memorial to the murdered Jewish children), the Holocaust Memorial in Paris… and the meticulous work of investigating and cross-checking the archives, led by a multidisciplinary team of the Victor Durui College, whose teachers are bogus persons. “We strive to share the fate of Solange, to make her story shine so that everyone can see it and share it, together we would like to say that this is a sadly beautiful story. Solange was a full of life teenager, she loved to sing, dance, sometimes even skipped math classes …. ‘, explains Christel Laumer Breyet.

The eternal Chalonaise in her soul, brutally murdered by Solange Ast, bears all the horror created in these dark hours of history, only handwritten letters written before the horror of mass extermination testify to the impulse of humanity that she shares with Lily: “I am slow … er- uh and swing… uh-emeritus. I spin, I kick my feet, I shake my finger near my ear, zazou, all to perfection. But do not believe that my life is all dancing and wildly cheerful. Oh no ! if I’m so busy this morning, it’s because my heart is in Chalons and I’m rediscovering my forgotten gaiety there. And that’s the whole point. About those lives that need to be remembered. “If Mr. Emmanuel Macron is free on March 21, 2024, we will be happy to include him with us at the opening of the exhibition.” Her name was Solange … We never know … ”, Christel Laumer stealthily slips. Breuer. Links: www.memorialdelashoah.org