A chance discovery three years ago in the attic of a house at Vignacourt, a village near the Somme battlegrounds of WWI in France, has inspired a journey of discovery for nine young French students that is crossing continents and generations.
More than 4000 glass photographic plates belonging to Louis and Antoinette Thuillier were found in their village, including 800 depicting Australian soldiers who fought on the Western Front. Only a few of the Diggers have been identified.
The nine youngsters from the newly formed ‘Youth Embassy of Vignacourt’ came to Australia expressly to meet the descendants of those who could be found.
The timing could not have been better as Australian students commemorate 100 years since the Great War started, and their families gather memories and memorabilia of so many young lives lost on the other side of the globe.
“It’s our duty to help put names to these faces, and thus give them a voice,” the French team wrote on their now-famous We are the Diggers blog. “While the Diggers can no longer speak for themselves, we help their descendants speak on their behalf.”
Ivanhoe Grammar Round Square co-ordinator Rod Summerton told Star Weekly a television program about the Vignacourt discovery had been spotted by one of the staff late last year, and contact was then made with the Youth Embassy for the school to be involved in this year’s visit.
“They now know the door is open here for something further,” Mr Summerton said after the group’s whirlwind few days in Victoria, one of six states on their tour. “They all freely admit they were trying to fit too much in.”
Mr Summerton said the best short-term benefit of the visit had been engaging students of French with native speakers of the second language of the United Nations. “The longer-term benefit is that these young people will keep in contact.”
The Ivanhoe school’s Round Square program is based on a global schools exchange network inspired by German educator and philosopher Kurt Hahn, who believed schools should not just prepare pupils for higher education but should prepare them for life.
