When Alexandre Grothendieck went to school

Alexandre Grothendieck, born in 1928, is one of the mathematician geniuses of the XX century. He is also one of the initiators of the anti-nuclear movement in France, with the magazine Survivre et Vivre which he ran for a few years with fellow mathematicians, until 1973 when he suddenly disappeared from public life. The picture on the right, from 1988, is taken from Winfried Scharlau's web site: www.scharlau-online.de/ag_1.html.

What is known of Grothendieck's life is a real epic, and a testimony of courage. Son of a Russian Jewish anarchist and a German communist, he could escape the Nazi in his childhood (his father was arrested in France and sent to Auschwitz, while he and his mother were interned in a camp) thanks to remarkable people. His memoirs, Récoltes et Semailles, (“Reapings and Sowings”) was circulated among his friends from 1988 onwards, before being published on the internet. These are the very first words of this rich and dense, 1000-page document:

      “When I was a kid, I liked to go to school. We had the same teacher for teaching us reading and writing, calculations, singing (he used to play with a small violin for accompanying us), or the prehistoric men and the discovery of fire. I don't remember that we ever felt bore at school, at that time. He had the magic of numbers, and of words, of signs and of sounds. The magic of rhymes also, in songs or in small poems. It seemed there was in rhymes a mystery beyond words. The mystery remainded, until someone explained to me that there was a very simple “catch”; that rhyme is simply when we conclude two consecutive spoken movements with the same syllable, turning them, as if by enchantment, into verses. It was a revelation! At home, where I found much response around me, for weeks and for months, I played making verses. At a time, I used to speak only in rhymes. That time is finished, fortunately. But even now, sometimes, I still make poems – without searching hard for rhyme, if it doesn't come by itself.”

(translated from the original in French)

I wish we knew who this teacher was! It is unclear whether it was Wilhelm Heydorn,  the  pastor and teacher who with his wife Dagmar, brought up Grothendieck for a few years in Hamburg, along with a few other foster children and their own children, and saved him from the Nazi.

In any case, it is easy to imagine from the sensitive description of Grothendieck that his first teacher really knew how a school should be, and how to create these blessed moments when children build themselves for the rest of their life. It is also remarkable that Grothendieck put this description at the opening of his monumental memoirs on mathematics, science, philosophy, education and politics, and titled “Reapings and Sowings”! This prominent place, and the very lively description, testify how important were early childhood “sowings” for Grothendieck, and how it remains alive 60 years later in his life.

The complete text of Récoltes et Semailles can be found at The Grothendieck Circle, and also the complete archives of Survivre et Vivre (in French), as well as many mathematical and non-mathematical texts, in French, German, English and Russian: 

www.grothendieckcircle.org

Biographical information and other articles (in German) can be found at:

www.scharlau-online.de/ag_1.html