GRAMERCY — In the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, children in the Normandy region of France started writing letters and drawing pictures filled with messages of hope and shared sadness.
The children, some as young as 4 years old, drafted the documents to express their condolences to the American people. Written in a mixture of French and broken English, some of the images and letters were given to the United States Embassy in France. The rest were archived at Le Mémorial de Caen, a museum documenting World War II history in the Normandy region.
But as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approached, the director of that museum decided those images and letters belonged in the U.S.
On Tuesday, the documents made their New York debut at the Ecole Internationale de New York, a bilingual French elementary school on East 22nd Street near Park Avenue.
“I read all of them, and it’s very moving,” said Yves Rivaud, co-founder head of the Ecole Internationale de New York, which opened two years ago.
The drawings and letters were displayed around one of the school’s common areas. Some were pasted to the walls, while others were hung along clotheslines crisscrossing the room. On Tuesday, parents and guests munched on croissants while meandering between the strings.
Students from the school’s fourth- and fifth-grade classes first got to glimpse the drawings and letters a few days before the exhibition on Tuesday. At 9 and 10 years old, they have no living memories of the 9/11 attacks — but that doesn’t make 9/11 any less personal.
“They really felt touched by the pictures and also the fact that they were made by [other] children,” said Marine Bissonnier, 29, a French teacher at the school. “It really links our two cultures.”
Kalliopy Paleos-Ferrari, 42, an English teacher at the school, said the documents resonated with students so much that they felt compelled to write letters and draw pictures to express their gratitude to the people of Normandy.
“It happened organically,” Paleos-Ferrari said.
“The kids have those stories [of 9/11] in them now,” she added. “It’s part of the fabric of their memories.”
At the event on Tuesday, several members of the fourth- and fifth-grade classes stood at the front of a crowded room and read letters of thanks they had written, while Paleos-Ferrari held up individual pictures they had drawn.
With his eyes glued to his paper, one boy said that the messages of peace in the letters and drawings were important for all the countries in the world.
“Peace and love are universal,” the fourth-grader said. “Thank you again for caring about us.”
Another fourth-grader said his parents told him they were watching television when the attacks of 9/11 unfolded.
“I was watching in my mom’s stomach,” wrote the boy, who was not yet born on 9/11. “I hope when something happens, we can help you.”
One girl spoke about how her father was in a plane that morning and how her mother feared his had been one of the airliners that hit the World Trade Center.
“That was the week [my mom] found out she was pregnant with me,” the girl said.
Those present-day letters and drawings will be added to the 10-year-old collection from Le Mémorial de Caen, which will ultimately go on display at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The museum is currently scheduled to open in 2012.
While the children took center stage at the event, it also provided an opportunity for adults to reflect on that day.
“It is already 10 years ago, but it’s as if it happened yesterday,” said Philippe Lalliot the consul general of France in New York, who attended the event on Tuesday. “I feel today the same sadness and the same anger I felt that day watching the towers collapse and people throwing themselves out of the windows.”
Laillot was in a plane traveling from Washington, D.C., to Boston at the time the first tower collapsed, he recalled.
His plane was the last to take off from D.C. and the last to land in Boston. He said it took hours before he could get through to his wife and children in D.C. to make sure they were OK.
Seeing the exhibition on Tuesday, Laillot said it showed him how connected the two countries are and how that connection was almost instinctual among the children who drew those pictures a decade ago.
“It’s a reference to a set of values that are at the foundation of not only my country, but the United States as well,” he said.
“I’m used to making speeches, you know,” Laillot added. “But these occasions are very, very special.”
