2014-2026
12 years on, the variety of encounters remains the core of this project
Since 2022, pupils from lycée Senghor, Évreux, have taken part to ceremonies in Austria, invited by the Amicale de Mauthausen.
This enables them to discover the sites of concentration camps, their history ans issues related to the remembrance of the deportation. Pupils have the opportunity to meet members of the Amicale, young Austrians, especially from Steyr where the group stays at a hostel, and members of delegations from all around the World.
This year, 33 élèves pupils from the lycée took part in that trip as well as 6 apprentices from CFA Hortipôle, the horticultural and professional training centre in Évreux. They were warmy welcomed everywhere, from the hostel and restauants to the commemoration sites in Mauthausen, Steyr or Vienna. There, 10 pupils from the lycée français de Vienne (who celebrated its 80th birthday) took them on a tour to discover the Wall of Names or the appartment where Freud lived. They went together to the French Embassy.
Alexandra and Karl (left), from the Komitee Steyr, met the group to explain the initiatives they take to ensure traces of Nazi crimes are not erased. In this cemetery, more than 800 urns were found. They contain ashes from the first deportees to be incinerated in the main camp, Mauthausen, before a crematorium was built there.
2025-2026
Photo@Ambassade de France, Vienne
On Sunday, May 10, the ceremonies took place in Mauthausen. Pupils were invited to lay flowers on the monuments of different countries: Luxemburg, Spain, Poland or the Czech Republic for instance.
Ceremonies take place first at the national monuments (the French delegation was led by the Ambassador), then a walk towards the Appelplatz, inside the camp.
The group from Évreux then marched alongside that of the pupils that came from Altkirch, in Alsace. Together, they sang "The moor soldier", a song invented by deportees that sprang amongst all nationalities as a song of hope and resistance.
Notre groupe offre des livres, les recueils de témoignages que le lycée transmet depuis 2014, ou la BD sur le couple BAUDOT, ces résistants d'Évreux sur lesquels d'autres lycéens ont travaillé avec le service Archives & Patrimoine d'Évreux.
Ces jeunes seront officiellement Ambassadeurs des mémoires d'Évreux ; un diplôme leur sera remis le 1 juin à la mairie d'Évreux
Lundi 11 mai, après 40 mn de travail en commun au Gymnasium de Steyr, le groupe franco-autrichien (50 élèves) lit des textes et brandit des messages en hommage aux Résistants et victimes de la barbarie nazie, en faisant des allusions à l'actualité. Les apprentis d'Hortipôle offrent un dahlia Simone Veil aux élèves de Steyr. Les symboles ont été, tout au long du séjour, au coeur des échanges.
Martine Tomas Espejo, from the Amicale, mentionned the suffering her father-in-law went through, but also how brave he had been. : He fought Franco in Spain before fighting the Nazis, including by resisting in the camps, as in Steyr-Munishholz.
