Ostinato was born from the meeting of two Metz associations, the Association du Fort de Queuleu and the Cie Entre les Actes.
The Fort de Queuleu association was created in 1971 by former internees and deportees and their families. These men and women wanted to preserve the memory of the special internment camp (SS Sonderlager), located in one of the fort's barracks.

Ostinato is a multitude of points of view which makes it possible to put things into perspective.

How to describe?
How to tell?
How to watch?

“How to go beyond,
go behind
not stopping at what is given to us to see
not only seeing what we knew in advance
What would we see?
How to grasp what is not shown, what does not have
been photographed, archived, restored, staged? » Ellis Island – Georges Perrec

Making Perec's problem our own, we approach the history of Fort de Queuleu with a desire for objectivity and truthfulness in order to allow everyone to question this troubled and obscure period. There is of course no truth to assert. Who are we and where are we talking about in this place which is not a theater?

EXTRACTS

"Finally, I was received with open arms, eh. With chairs, sticks, clubs, fists... I had to count the teeth I spat out. They stuck me on the table. They put a terry towel over my mouth. They miscalculated their move, my throat was on the edge of the table.

And they said to me: Do you know Mario? No.

So the blows rained down… I don’t know how I got out of that office. I don't know how I ended up in this cell downstairs. I was…a little bit gone…”

"They didn't know if it was bacon or pork... So there... But I never said anything. Yet I knew some who were in the group. But I never cheated

one word, one word, one word…”

"With rifle butts, they made us get out of the car. We went down the steps... it's not going down the steps, it's tumbling them all the way to the bottom."

“And there, they gave us our number. He said to me: From today your name is no longer Burger, your name is 144.”

Books, music, documentaries and films that accompanied us...

• The Gestapo in Moselle, a police force at the heart of Nazi repression by Cédric Neveux / Editions du jour
  

• The Resistance in annexed Moselle, the “Mario” group of Cédric Neveu / Editions du jour
  

• Mosellane Tragedies, Fort de Queuleu in Metz - Docteur Léon Burger / Auto édition
  

• Metz at War, 1939-1945 by Philippe Wilmouth / Editions Alan Sutton

• Special SS camp, Fort de Queuleu by Charles Hoefel / Auto édition
  

• The internment camps at Fort de Metz Queuleu, 1943-1946 (2011) by Philippe Wilmouth
  

• The Metz Queuleu internment camp, 2006 by Laura Rosenzwerg

• Memories of Charles Friess
  

• Debout - Documentary film commissioned in 2000 by the CG57
  

• Interviews with Sonderlager survivors < Madeleine, Alphonse; Gilbert (now deceased)
  

• Submission to authority

• Ellis Island by George Perec
  

• Henryk Gorecki, Symphony No. 3

Writing
Staging
Game
Marie-Pierre Mazzarini & Laurent Varin

Light creation
Jacqueline Mangin

Capture

S.Jean-Noël Pierre

Vincent Conrad

Stéphane Ulrich

For two seasons (2016/2017), Ostinato was performed in situ in front of nearly 2000 people (general public and schools).

An exceptional performance took place in August 2017 at the Popular Culture Theater in Natal, Brazil.

Three readings based on poems by Jacques Prévert were also offered at the Alliance Française de Natal.

PRESS

TERMS
Audience All audiences, recommended from 14 years old
Duration 50 minutes