the logbook of a former Bataclan hostage, week 31

Since September 8, 2021 the trial of the attacks of November 13 is held in Paris. David Fritz-Goeppinger, victim of these attacks is now a photographer and author. He agreed to share via this logbook his feelings, in image and in writing, during the long months of this river trial, which began on Wednesday September 8, 2021 before the special assize court in Paris. Here is his account of the 31st week and final week of hearing.

>> The Thirtieth Week Diary

Wednesday June 22. 145th day of hearing. Time is compressing more than ever and considering the number of interview requests that I receive, we are close to the end. I always hesitate to respond to requests from the press since I keep the newspaper and through it, I deliver a lot. So I favor foreign media so that the ten months resonate across the Channel, across the Rhine and elsewhere. I have less and less time to sit in the auction room but I try to cling to it as a semblance of something. Basically, there is only one week left and even the air in the main courtroom seems to be humming with excitement.

This morning, the daughter of a good friend accompanies me to the Palace and like a true guide, I show her around the sanctuary and tell her a number of anecdotes about the Salle des Pas Perdus. It may sound strange, but I’m happy to be able to show this to someone from the outside. It is the turn of the defense of Sofien Ayari to plead today. I did not have time to see Mr. Maallaoui’s argument and the hearing is suspended for a moment. I take this opportunity to portray Mathilde Lemaire and Gaële Joly, both journalists in the police-justice department of franceinfo. This is the photo of the day. Yesterday I thought of turning the microphone towards Gaële so that she could tell me a little about her opinion on the audience and on the genesis of the newspaper. I’m not used to the exercise and I hesitate a little in my questions and my editing is a bit risky I think, but hey, as I often say, I’m not a journalist.

Return to the Salle des Pas Perdus to listen to Master Gultasar’s impressive argument. But following the audience is now a challenge as everything overlaps. Replay screens keep crashing and not helping. I briefly go back and forth in the particularly full main room to chat with Bruno and give him what I called “my last notebook”. It’s been a long time since I stopped blackening the pages of my notebooks, but this one is special. It’s a notebook that Nadine Ribet-Reinhart gave me several months ago and that I kept for this last week. This notebook, which is not intended for me, is intended to collect the words of friends, of people I rubbed shoulders with for ten months at the Palais de Justice. To be honest, I personally won’t do anything with it, but I intend to donate it to the National Archives so that one day, others will consider these words.

I write these paragraphs seated in a noisy cafe near my home. The smell of cigarettes hangs in the air and people are chatting as the bells of bicycles passing by ring out in the restaurant. From here, the Palace seems far and distant, yet extracting myself from it was tough today. It’s strange, this dissonant way of being attached to something that hurts so much, that questions so much and that will soon die out. I often talk about breath, breathing, air, oxygen, as if we were at the top of Everest and I think back to the words of Aurélie who described us, Arthur and me, as rope companions. As if in the end, we, the victims and the civil parties, had finally practically arrived at the pass to be climbed.

Tomorrow, I will not come to the hearing, we celebrate our four years of marriage my wife and I. We are almost there and I feel deep inside me an energy that I know too well. That of a block of memory which ends its last move on the chessboard of my life.

See you Friday.