Three students from the IES Sorts de la Mar in Dénia have carried out an emotional tribute to those deported and murdered in the Nazi concentration camps of Mauthausen and Gusen. The Dianense institute participated in the project to recover the historical memory of the Dénia City Council coordinated from the Municipal Archive and presented its candidacy to participate in the trip and stay of students to Mauthausen-Gusen 2023 convened by the Valencian Federation of Municipalities and Provinces ( FVMP) and the Amical association of Mauthausen and other fields, within the program "Memory: democratic coexistence".
The three 1st year Baccalaureate students, accompanied by their Contemporary World History teacher, Marc Castle, traveled to Mauthausen to learn more about the facts and pay homage to the four Dianenses who suffered in the extermination camps the repression of the Nazi regime: Asensio Vives Rosselló, Jaume Crespo Vengut, José Ramis Grimalt and Vicent Pérez Bolufer. The trip of the students and faculty was in charge of the FVMP and, according to the call, the town halls agree to finance the cost of a representative. The Dénia City Council agreed, in the Governing Board, that the person who would represent in the Dénia City Council would be Josep Antoni Ahuir, for his work in the memorial activities in Dénia and also for being a relative of one of the Dianenses murdered in the fields.
The students expressed that the trip has been an unforgettable and exciting experience that has helped them learn about the subject of concentration camps and thus be able to transmit it to everyone so that history does not repeat itself. Míriam Labios, a first-year high school student, pointed out that «the visits to the different fields have been very interesting and emotional. It has been a magnificent opportunity that they have given us ».
The trip included visits to the Mauthausen, Gusen and Ebensee concentration camps, the Harteim castle and the Steyr cemetery, where the remains of José Carrió Marsal, a resident of Pedreguer, are buried; Anna Pointner's house, where the photographs that served as evidence in the Nuremberg trials were hidden, and more.
The students highlighted that the visit to the concentration camps has been a very special experience in their lives. «Knowing everything that happened there before already causes you a lot of sadness and you don't understand what happened, but once there the feeling intensifies much more when you imagine everything that happened on the same ground that you are stepping on. This visit has been key to not forget what happened there and to raise awareness that these things have happened and continue to happen so that we act differently and never again allow this type of atrocity to be committed”, declared the student Enrique Dros.
