As part of the exhibition dedicated to Helga Weissova, who survived the concentration camps, and visible until Saturday at Villages Vovéens, the public will be able to see two unique drawings. They were made by Éloïse Kratz and Clara Tournereau-Colin, 3rd grade students at the Gaston-Couté college, in Voves.
In this commune, a stele, a wagon, a plaque… recalls the existence of an internment camp where sports and the arts helped to withstand the unbearable. Thousands of kilometers away, in the Czech Republic, the Terezin ghetto, “where certain prisoners expressed themselves through art…”.
Duty of memory and transmission
A member of the memory committee of the Voves camp, Valérie Malherbe is concerned with the duty of memory and its transmission to the youngest.
Coordinator Ulis (which aims to promote the school inclusion of students with disabilities or who need an adapted cycle) at the Gaston-Couté school, saw an opportunity when she discovered, at the end of last year, a Terezin monument plastic arts contest
, where Helga Weissova also passed, open to young French and Czechs. Valérie Malherbe suggests her idea to her class at Ulis. “The idea was to show how culture can bear witness and help in this context of suffering”, she sums up.
Young volunteers from the Civic Service animate the Ehpad de La Charmeraie, in Nogent-le-Rotrou
sensitive to the subject
With the help of other teachers, these 4th graders had a week to return their copy, before the competition closed. Very young, Clara Tournereau-Colin, originally from Voves, and Éloïse Kratz, from Orgères-en-Beauce, had only a summary knowledge, typical of their age, of the Voves camp and the tragedies surrounding the extermination during the Second World War World. . However, these two schoolgirls, whose coordinator Ulis welcomes volunteerism in general, were passionate about the subject. “In what we have done, it is also a tribute to the people who met in the camps,” the two students point out.
“Art liberated…”
For this contest, Éloïse wanted to “represent bars and arts, drawing, music…”. “We could use whatever we wanted. I used pencil and collage,” he says. And Valérie Malherbe to complete: “Where he had the brilliant idea is that he made black edges, for the bars, that he rolled up and that separated. What symbolizes liberated art…”
For her part, Clara leaned towards silhouettes of dancers drawn on paper where she linked the name of Voves to Terezin and fluttered, different arts.
At the age of 10, David Lacan, from Chartres, new world chess champion, dreams of becoming an international Grand Master
Honored by the Czech delegation
“I am proud of what they have done. They understood the meaning it represented”, the teacher enthuses. On the occasion of the Helga Weissova exhibition, the Czech delegation will present an award to the two young schoolgirls. “I’ve never had a reward like that,” says Éloïse Kratz modestly. “I’m happy because I didn’t expect to win!” adds Clara Tournereau-Colin.
Teenagers are the most affected by these first prizes, which shows, according to them, that Ulis’s students are as deserving and capable as the others.
The Villages Vovéens are working on a twinning with Terezin.
Program
The exhibition dedicated to Helga Weissova can be visited, in the Salle Feugereux, on Thursday 20 and Friday 21 October, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
At the same time, the public will be able to discover an exhibition about Terezin.
Jan and Michel Palecek will lead a conference on the Czech Republic, on Friday, October 21, at 6 pm