the diary of an ex-hostage of the Bataclan, week 11

On November 13, 2015, David Fritz-Goeppinger was at the Bataclan when the concert hall was attacked by three men, armed with assault rifles and explosive belts. “Never again in my life will I forget these faces”, David confides. Held hostage for two and a half hours, he thinks every minute that his time has come. Until the assault of the BRI police. That night, the coordinated attacks on the Stade de France, the terraces of the 10th and 11th arrondissements of Paris and the Bataclan, left 130 dead, including 90 in the concert hall, and more than 400 injured. Almost six years later, it is the trial of these attacks which is held in Paris. David Fritz-Goeppinger, now a photographer, has agreed to share via this logbook his feelings, in image and in writing, during the long months that the historic trial of these November 13 attacks that marked France. Here is his account of the eleventh week.

>> The tenth week diary

Wednesday November 24. This weekend, my body once again made it clear to me that I had once again gone too far in my physical and psychological investment in the trial, I once again caught a huge cold.

Yesterday, while going to take the metro, I stopped at the first newsagent on my way to buy the last issue of Rock & Folk to find there the two letters we wrote with Arthur a few weeks ago. Like a teenager, I hurriedly flip the pages to read our words and send a photo to my friend, we are proud. I passed the Palais in a gust of wind, I had an appointment with Virginie Le Roy, civil party lawyer, for a portrait that you will see soon. As I leave, I turn to look at the gate of the main entrance of the Palace and the photograph, the gilding is shining. I preferred the seats in a doctor’s waiting room rather than the hard seats in the courtroom and continue to listen to the proceedings from my home thanks to Internet radio.

After the depositions of the civil parties and the resulting photographs, I thought that turning to the key players in the life of the trial was essential. In the photo of the day, my lawyer, Maître Aurélie Coviaux. I met her in March 2016, after a meeting of an association of victims. It is she, who accompanied me and who always accompanies me in the throes of the “file” with the Guarantee Fund and who today represents me in the courtroom of the November 13 attacks.

Sitting in my usual place, I start my seventh notebook while the Austrian witness takes his place facing the court. He is one of the investigators who interviewed two of the defendants arrested in Austria, a month after the attacks, on December 10. I remember stumbling across the information in the midst of a cloud of others that had been falling over the days since November 13th and not really realizing its importance. Today, the two men arrested are in the box, and I breathe the same air as them for part of the week. I am beginning to have difficulty following the trial as we go through every day in the smallest details of the case which makes, if I must remind you, a million pages. I wonder if my daily follow-up will not transform, in the coming weeks, into bi-weekly follow-up. If I don’t want to miss any part of the trial, I must resolve to protect myself against it other than through the logbook.

Today’s hearing continues; the witness has been on the stand for four and a half hours. The investigator speaks in German to an interpreter, who, for her part, restores the parties in French, which can make listening complicated.

Night falls on the Palace and I decide to stop writing there.

Until tomorrow.