Children of the Resistance: A Dive into France in the 1940s
Event Overview
The EFBA team is pleased to offer students enrolled in EFBA courses in 2021-2022, in partnership with the National Museum of Education (MUNAE) in France, an activity based on the Belgian comic strip Les Enfants de la résistance, created by cartoonist Benoît Ers and scriptwriter Vincent Dugommier. During their French classes, children and teenagers will discover with their teachers the albums of the series and the adventures of three young fictional resistance fighters (François, Eusèbe and Lisa) during the Second World War in France.
To close the project, an online meeting will be organized with the authors of the comic and the curator of the exhibition dedicated to it at the MUNAE. We will discover this exhibition by videoconference with the participants during the meeting. To see the virtual exhibition, click here!
Teaching Objectives
Through this activity, students will:
- Understand, through a fictional story, the context of an era (the German Occupation) linked to a major historical event of the 20th century: the Second World War
- Understand the daily life of children and adolescents during this period
- Learn to define resistance
- Discover the main stages in the creation of a comic strip
Children of the Resistance: a Dive into France in the 1940s
Children of the Resistance is a Belgian comic book series in 7 volumes written by Vincent Dugomier and Benoît Ers. The first volume was published for the first time on May 7, 2015, by the publishing house Le Lombard.
The two authors had already been collaborating for a long time before their project to create Les Enfants de la résistance. One day, during a discussion about the Second World War, they realized that they both had family members who were resistance fighters. The idea was born! The comic book tells the story of three children who resist against the German occupiers during the Second World War. The story begins in the summer of 1939 in volume 1 and the last volume published places the plot in May 1943. In June 1940, the French army experienced the greatest military debacle in its history against the German forces. Marshal Pétain signed the armistice on June 22 with Nazi Germany and became the leader of the free zone of France. In the small village of Pontain-l’Écluse located in the occupied zone, François, Eusèbe and Lisa, aged 13, decide to disobey and resist against the Nazis. The three of them try to carry out some small actions such as not lowering their eyes in front of the German soldiers; they want to show all the defeatists that even if France had lost a battle, it had not lost the war!
Discover the first volume of Les Enfants de la Résistance to buy on Amazon in French by clicking here.
DETAILS
When: Saturday January 15th from 9:30 am to 11 am PST
Who: children and teenagers from 8 to 14 years old enrolled in our French courses at the following levels: Moyens and Grands Francophones, Français Langue Seconde 2 and 3, FL-C and FL-D, middle school students.
During the meeting, what will you need?
A computer (or tablet) with both webcam and microphone
A good Internet connection.
And that’s it!
Not open to participants not enrolled in EFBA courses.
The Authors, Vincent Dugomier and Benoît Ers
REGISTRATION
EFBA Student Rate
- (free for students enrolled in EFBA French courses in 2021-2022)
- This activity is reserved for current students.
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