For everyone in France, the Toulouse attack, Mohammed Merah, is the Jewish school shooting. However, the young terrorist had, a few days before, killed three soldiers, a Toulouse quartermaster Imad Ibn Ziaten, and two paratroopers of the 17th RGP of Montauban, Abel Chennouf and Mohamed Legouad. On Monday, March 19, 2012, just before eight o’clock, after having missed a new military target, the Islamist stopped his scooter in front of Ozar Hatorah, the Jewish college-high school in the Roseraie district of Toulouse. He injures a teenager and without hesitation executes Jonathan Sandler, a teacher accompanied by his two little boys, six-year-old Arié and Gabriel, three and a half, as well as an eight-and-a-half-year-old girl, Myriam Monsonégo. The three children had to take a shuttle to go to their denominational school, the Gan Rashi. The middle and high school students hid, many took refuge in the refectory. Some will try in vain to revive the two little ones.
Eytan was 11 at the time, he was in sixth grade, he hid in the old refectory during the attack. His father brought him back to Perpignan just after the massacre, he had then testified on France Bleu Roussillon. The following year, he left Occitania for Paris. Today, Eytan, 21, is a student in London, he also lives partly alongside his mother in Israel. France Bleu found him.
What is the first memory that comes to mind when you think back to what happened on March 19, 2012?
Ten years later, it’s true that everything is still a little hazy, with vague memories. Everything happened so fast. It’s a shock, a trauma. Over time, we have things that come back to us, things that we forget. In any case, the same feeling is there, the same feeling of stress, of fear. I still have trouble talking about it ten years later, what I saw and heard are still difficult.
Why is it so difficult? Because there is death around?
That’s exactly it and it’s not just any death. These people did not choose and we are the collateral damage. There is pain, suffering, trauma, but we must respect the dead. That’s why March 19 is a special day for me, for all of us who were there.
I was just a child, I didn’t ask for anything
Have you ever managed to talk about it or is it because today you don’t want to talk about it anymore?
I never really managed to actually talk about it. I tried a lot, I did some introspection on myself. It’s a subject I prefer to avoid. There hasn’t been a single day in my life since, since March 19, 2012 that I haven’t thought about it. Just talking about it sends shivers down my spine. I was just a child and I hadn’t asked for anything.
Do you still manage to be happy to be alive, when you could have been one of the victims that day?
This is one of the many questions I ask myself. Why not me ? Why is it I who am alive and they who are dead? There are a lot of questions, but I don’t think we can rejoice. No, I can’t be happy to be alive. I can’t tell myself that I was unlucky either. You have to make up your mind quickly, otherwise don’t move forward.
What keeps you going today? Oblivion?
No not necessarily. The family, my family who were there a lot, who were able to show empathy, patience especially because it was difficult for a long time, even today. It often comes back at night. I managed to come to terms with it, but it was above all the family who supported me with compassion, not with pity. It feels good.
Did you keep in touch with the college students who were with you at that time?
Very, very few of them, because you have to know that I only stayed one year in this college. Then I left Toulouse for Paris. For some, I showed cowardice but the shock was too great, I preferred to leave.
I have the impression that we have been a little forgotten in this story
Ten years later, there are many commemorations. You dread them, you expect them?
This is the first time I ask myself the question. To fear them would mean that I am still afraid. I think waiting for them too, in a way, it lifts the souls of those who have passed away. So, I wait for them to pray for them, to have a special thought for them at that time. And as I have been doing for 10 years, that day, March 19 is a very important day for me.
You will not be at the commemorations, but you will be there in thought and in prayer…
Exactly, I pray there isn’t a single day that I don’t think of them. My thoughts go first to families, friends, loved ones, and of course to my former comrades who were there with me, who have experienced the same things as me and who have the same pains and sorrows. The world needs to know, because I also feel like I’ve been forgotten a bit in this story. Not me personally, but we haven’t talked about it enough. There was a series of events and attacks and I think that with everything that is happening in the world today, it is still good to give them a little reminder shot.