Fifteen female students have travelled to Invercargill as part of a school exchange programme, where they have been learning about New Zealand’s contribution to assisting in the French liberation during World Wars 1 and 2.
"We are here on an exchange programme in Invercargill with Southland Girls’ High and James Hargest," Lycee Lalande history teacher Damien Rousseille said.
"Today we would like to show how grateful we are to New Zealanders because of what they did during World War 2 and World War 2."
They went to Europe and helped free European people, especially the French, he said.
The French school was the only one in France that had been awarded the Medal of Resistance, for having had many students who had worked for the resistance movement during the war.
"Sadly, many of those students were arrested on the final day of their exams, taken from school and sent to concentration camps," Southland Girls’ High School teacher Sarah Rabbitt said.
As part of their history studies about World War 1 and 2, some of the French students took part in the re-enactment of resisting the German forces at their school on that ominous day.
"It’s a tragic story because during the war, 31 of the students died.
"And in June 1944, 10 of them were arrested by French police and deported to Germany and Eastern European countries and some of them never came back," Mr Rousseille said.
Alyssa Martin, 17, said she was proud to have been in the drama but felt it was really heartbreaking and emotional because some of the family she was representing in the piece were watching the play.
"So we should not forget it, and we should not, of course, repeat them [wars], French student Camille Pirollet, 16, said.
