"We met on the terrace of the Excelsior. Every night. Fifteen years was our age. Algeria was still a French colony, but the war, under the name of "pacification", had entered the scene, sweeping Albert Camus' dream of a free union between Algerians and Europeans. The first mass action of the FLN took place on August 25, 1955 in Philippeville, where I was born. The lower city is invaded by the inhabitants of the heights, Arabs and Berbers. Framed by some FLN militants, they are armed with scythes, sickles, pickaxes, axes - rare are rifles. More than one hundred Europeans are killed. The repression, led by Colonel Aussaresses, is terrible: the machine guns shoot without judge or trial thousands of prisoners in the stadium of the city. I only learned about it later. That day, I was three kilometers from Philippeville, on the beach of Stora. We did not know that the war was taking place. The radio, the newspaper, spoke of "rebels". My friends at the Excelsior were blind and deaf like me. Denial reigned. The sea was so beautiful, we were in the excitement of living, and too bad if everything was wrong in colonial Algeria." --Translated from back cover
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