After the attacks of November 13, 2015, no one was the same again, not even the city of Paris. “It was the end of French innocence,” he wrote then. The World. However, the Bataclan room remains anchored in time. Almost intact, although his name still hurts.
At number 50 on one of the busiest boulevards in the capital, and named after the well-known French philosopher Voltaire, is the historic Parisian room. Generations of artists and spectators have passed through there almost daily for 160 years. There is no one who has not gone there at some point to see their favorite band.
Bataclan does not discriminate, because that is the heart of Parisian culture. Maybe that’s why the attacks hurt so much. Because it was not against the people who were there, but against what they represented; against the freedom to dance, to enjoy without conditions and to be yourself.
Few trusted that that characteristic sound could be heard again in the room; that of music interspersed with people’s laughter, but 10 years after that fateful night, in which three men armed with AK-47 kalashnikovs broke into the premises and killed 90 people, the resilience that characterizes the French people has made everything practically return to the way it was before. Nobody wants to let the Bataclan die, which has already become a place of memory, struggle and resistance against the horror that one day jihadism wanted to impose.
It’s not a coincidence
Everything remains the same as that night of November 13, 2015, and it is not a coincidence. Its owners have not wanted to change anything as a symbol of resistance. Upon entering, the red walls matching the curtain dress an imposing moatwhere every week hundreds of people let themselves be carried away to the rhythm of the music. Most of the victims died there, in the dark and trapped in a hail of bullets that came from the main door. Among a mountain of lifeless bodies was that of the Spaniard Juan Alberto González Garrido, 29 years old.
At the back of the room, there is a large bar counter, where one of the security agents was who reacted quickly to what was happening and decided to open the main emergency exit located on the left side. That reflection saved hundreds of people who were able to escape to safety. The guard tried to do the same with the rest of the exits located at the ends of the stage, but it was too late. The terrorists were in the middle of the dance floor shooting anyone who moved on the floor.
That night, the moans of the wounded and the sound of cell phones, which did not stop ringing, replaced the music of the American rock group Eagles of Death Metal, which should have been playing at that moment.
Going up the stairs located on the sides of the bar, you access the second floor, where you will find the boxes dressed with hundreds of red seats. The same ones that in 2015 helped many hide from the attack, and that now help those who, despite physical difficulties, refuse to miss a concert. At the back, two small doors lead to the emergency stairs, where They were held captive for two hours and 40 minutes. a dozen people, including the superviviente francochileno David Fritz Goeppinger. From the window located behind the door of that corridor, the terrorists shot at the police and even killed a neighbor from the opposite building who was sitting in his armchair watching television.
Months of mourning
After the attack, the room remained closed for a time. As if the space will need to grieve. During those months, silence settled on its red walls, but In 2016 it reopened to transform memory into space. “We have changed everything so that nothing changes,” said its director at the reopening.
The Bataclan has not changed, but the feeling it generates when entering has. Although the security measures of the premises have been reinforced, many cannot avoid, once inside, locating the emergency exits. The witnesses of that night of terror, however, have not returned, although they are glad that others can. “That means the music won.”, said one of the survivors.
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