Broadcast Tuesday evening on France 2, the documentary "The high school students, the traitor and the Nazis", directed by David André, looks back on the forgotten epic of a network of resistant high school students during the Second World War, finally betrayed by one of theirs.
France 2 broadcasts Tuesday evening at 11:30 pm the documentary
Les lycéens, le traître et les nazis
, which wants to shed light on a little-known episode in the history of France.
He looks back at the story of a network of around a hundred Parisian high school students, who trained in secret to fight the Germans in the south, in 1944. What they do not know is that one of the 'them is a traitor and has been informing the Germans for years.
When they leave Paris to go to fight, these young people fall into a trap and about forty of them will perish before they even reach their destination.
A tragedy that occurred "on the same day as the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre"
This dramatic story had never been captured before, much to the surprise of the documentary's director, David André.
"It is not easy to understand why this extraordinary story by its magnitude, its dramatic and heroic side, has remained so little known. It is argued that it occurred on the same day as the Oradour-sur- massacre. Glane which would have eclipsed it in our memory ", he explains.
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On the very places of history
To tell this story, the director resorted to reconstruction with the help of young actors from the Cours Florent.
It was the only solution, according to him: "This story had no picture, apart from a few minutes, the confessions of a traitor and the handwritten memories of survivors of the network, but no photos. The only way to to bring it back to life was to reincarnate it through the sets which have remained the same: the farm where the drama took place and the surrounding forest ", indicates the director.