Motoring through the sleepy ruralness of France’s Limousin region with its gently rolling hills, mile upon mile of wheat fields, crops of sunflowers interspersed with oak and beech woodland you’d be forgiven for thinking that life here has been much the same for hundreds of years.
And to a certain extent it probably has but an occasion in its recent history has left a scar so deep that is unlikely to ever recover. For a small town just north-west of Limoges memories from seventy years ago are still raw; events shouldered alone while the attention of the allied world was focussed on the major battle raging in the north of the country meant that no-one shared the agony of this small, tight-knit community.
On the 10th June 1944, just four days after the Normandy landings Oradour-sur-Glane, a prosperous little market town, was razed to the ground by the German S.S, its inhabitants brutally massacred.
Women and children were rounded up and locked into the church which was then set alight; men were rounded up into smaller groups, machine-gunned down, covered with hay and fuel and their bodies burned. Some were burned alive.
There were very few survivors. On that fateful day, 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane lost their lives.
After the war, a new Oradour-sur-Glane was built nearby but, on the orders of General de Gaulle, the original town was to remain exactly as it had been left after the atrocity as a memorial to its fallen.
Today there is a sombre visitor’s centre which leads you through a tunnel under the road to the original town where you are free to roam along the streets and view the devastation. There is no charge.
Rusted cars remain exactly where they were torched seventy years ago; tram lines are still visible, running the length of the main street; an old sewing machine, battered yet still recognisable, has been left in the charred ruins of the tailor’s shop. Patterned ceramic tiles, fallen from the wall of the butcher’s store lay heaped on the floor while where the old garage was, an enamel placard advertising Renault Cars is still just visible.
The butcher’s shop
The Girl’s School
The Church
The Post Office with tram lines in front
The main street leading up to the cemetery
At the top of the town, you cross a grassy flower meadow to the old cemetery. Only here is there evidence of human intervention – the place is kept respectfully neat and tidy while the ornate headstones provide testament to the truly shocking reality that so many families perished on the same day. There is a newly built underground memorial hall to the inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane. Every name of those who died is engraved on its walls while encased in modern, light-filled vitrines are some of the artefacts taken from the victims or discovered amongst the wreckage. Spectacles, pocket watches (with the hands stopped between the hours of five and six in the evening – the time of the massacre), pots, ceramics and the metal handles of handbags – all serve as reminders that this atrocity happened to ordinary people just like us.
As you pick your way carefully back towards the visitor’s tunnel along the cobbles separated by mosses and self-seeded wild flowers the atmosphere in the ruined town is one of reverence – people walk quietly around the shattered buildings each with their own thoughts, taking a few poignant photographs.
The preserved wreckage of Oradour-sur-Glane is a very powerful memorial.
For further reading, click here.
Powerful story, Jenny, and the link to the full article can’t help make you angry that so few were ever called to account for this atrocity. It’s difficult to know what is the truth in war – how much do people do things because they are forced to, and how much are they brutalised into being the initiators.
It’s unbelievable to think what some of them got away with. Don’t forget this atrocity was perpetrated by the SS who were a trained killing machine – some of their training methods were barbaric, to put it mildly.
Whenever I read of such acts, whether historical or in the present-day, I can only profess a complete lack of understanding. Why do we do this? Why have we done this? And, why will we continue to do this? I want to understand. It is an understatement to say that it makes no sense … but, perhaps I have not walked in the proverbial shoes of those who have gone before me. I would like to think, however, that if ever I were to find myself in those shoes, I would find another way to solve whatever problem I was faced with. I surely wish the aggressors at Oradour-sur-Glane that day had thought to look for that other way. I am ashamed for them and for all of us as human beings. Thank you, however, for presenting such a sensitive and honest account and remembrance. Let us hope and work for a better future. I am glad that de Gaulle ordered the place to remain – for all of us to see – it certainly provides a visceral and powerful lesson that we all should know about. D
Yes, I agree. It leaves behind a lasting and very moving memorial.
Thanks for stopping by.
Very powerful stuff Jenny. The Germans had a lot to answer for in both World wars. It is inconceivable to me, how people can be so cruel to other human beings in the name of war.
It must have been an eery experience walking through the old town. It reminded me of Pompeii the way that the buildings and belongs are still there in a preserved state. Different circumstances I know but there are similarities.
I know what you mean although a natural disaster and a man-made one are poles apart really.
Jenny, Lest we forget… say it all…
Yes, I think it does …
🙂
What a moving accounting of what was a horrible experience! To see those lovely almost surreal sunflowers and then come across this town! I like the way de Gaulle ordered the town be left as it was before the massacre. Gives people pause in this hectic life.
It certainly makes you stop and think. For this to happen at all is appalling – for it to have happened to such a small rural community for no reason makes it somehow even worse. I think de Gaulle got it right.
Lest we forget is right, Jenny. In my 9th grade history class, our teacher’s father was one of those who was burned to death that day, and his sister died in the church. The teacher came to the U.S. as the last person in his family.
It wasn’t until I was in his class that the horrors seemed to truly hit home for me. One woman who lived with her inlaws on a farm outside our town had a number tattooed on her arm, and I felt awful about that, but this teacher broke my heart.
Thank you for this poignant reminder and the pictures.
Oh goodness Marylin, that is such a personal story. Was he ever able to lead a normal happy life? There were so few survivors, I wondered how this had affected them.
I’m happy to hear a beautiful memorial stands to remember that tragic day and to honor the victims. Such a horrible day.
On a brighter note, your photos are a ray of sunshine, Jenny. I’m so loving the sunflower photo!
The town being left in the state it ended up in after the SS had pillaged it really is a fitting memorial to its victims – and the fact that a new village was built next door shows the resilience of the people that were left, to try and rebuild their lives.
France was full of sunflower fields last month – I’ve never seen so many.
The beauty of your photos and prose lead us into the horrors of humankind’s capacity for evil. It’s up to each one of us to be peacemakers, in our families, and our communities. We must demonstrate tolerance, respect and compassion to our children.
Thank you for this grim reminder, it comes with the knowledge that these kinds of senseless tragedies are still happening.
We mustn’t forget, and we must never stop caring.
Thanks. Your comments are exactly right – it is up to us but somehow people are still falling far short. I keep thinking of the last line in the book by John Boyne, “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”.
Heavy with irony, the line is:
“Of course all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again.
Not in this day and age.”
Hmm.
Sobering … thank you for sharing.
Sobering is just the right word, Helena.
Thanks for this Jenny – so many people are unaware and oblivious of this terrible story. It’s all the more desperate as the war had largely left Oradour untouched up to then. It’s so difficult to repress feelings of anger towards the perpetrators, but Rod’s advice is of course spot on. Would that it was acted upon by all nations.
Of course there were other events like this throughout Europe during the war – Italy, Greece and Czechoslovakia – also not to be forgotten. Just when you actually see a memorial like this, it brings it home.
Thank you for posting. My uncle was a PoW but he did escape and returned to Wales. Those were bad days. I worked in Germany for 5 years and the people I met invariably looked back with shame and disgust. They remember too.
We must remember that these acts of atrocities were perpetrated by the SS – who were fanatics. They don’t represent a whole nation and it must be devastating for the German people to have this dark period in their history.
Grim and thought provoking reading. Timely, I feel. I have never understood why killing other people is ever acceptable.
No, nor me, Jacqueline, but the memorial is certainly thought provoking.
Wow. Thank you for this post. I also am glad there is a memorial. But I’m sad also at what happened.
Nice to see the sunflowers! I enjoy the ones near where I live.
Thanks for stopping by, L.Marie.
I saw your sunflowers – I’ve never seen so many in France as I did this trip.
What a haunting place it must be Jenny, but I do think it was a good decision to leave it standing as it is as a memorial, to show the full horror of what happened.
Me too. The French are very good at memorials, I must say. I suppose, sadly, that they have had a lot of practise.
Hi Jenny! I’ve just read your comment over at my post but wanted to read yours first before replying. The beauty of the French landscape (and I love your sunflowers!) against your stirring photos and story of what happened here makes for a powerful and emotive read which, as always, you tell and illustrate so evocatively. Really makes me stop and take breath and remember indeed the horror of what went on in this once peaceful, beautiful village… must have been very emotional visiting it…
Great to have you back my friend and now I’ll go and reply over at my place…
Yes it was quite emotional – we had a quiet afternoon afterwards, I must say. The images of those shattered buildings and the significance of what they are representing will stay with me for a long time.
Great photos. Disturbing story. Jenny, man’s inhumanity to man always boggles my mind. It’d be great if there was a learning curve from these horrific acts. Sad to say, that’s not the case.
Yes, you’re right, Judy. The situation in Gaza at the moment is a case in point.
This was a horrible occurrence in a terrible war, which fortunately, eventually stopped more of these from occurring. I wish the German S.S. could have been stopped sooner. This is another example in which I could not believe in human’s mean-spiritedness. The innocent civilians being burned up inside here. I wanted to say there was beauty in the silhouettes of the ancient buildings, but this would be hard to say. There are haunting memories attached to all of this. Thanks for the Lest We Forget message, Jenny!
Thanks for stopping by. The memories are definitely haunting, it is a very powerful memorial. Sadly though, although we have had no further world wars since, there continues to be conflict everywhere. Look at what’s happening in Gaza right now. And let’s not forget Syria. As a race, we humans just don’t learn, do we?
No, we don’t learn. Exactly, Jenny! Most of us may care about the world, but there are areas that are just not evolving or changing. Then, just in case it sounds like I think we are ‘better’ than other places a criminal, rapist or killer shows up in our town or close by. We are all a mess, wish it weren’t true. I used to wonder why civilization were not where the philosophers had hoped we would be. I know in the 70’s we felt we were on the pathway to Peace and Love around the world…
I’d never heard of this place before. Thank you for blogging this. Inspired thinking on de Gaulle’s part, this memorial serves as a reminder of the atrocious part of ourselves, that slinks into such dreadful tactics and justifies them.
It must have been a heart-wrenching trip, Jenny.
It was certainly very moving, RH. What was striking too, was the way every visitor moved around in respectful silence. There was an eerie quietness to the place. Thanks for trawling back through my posts, by the way – it’s always nice to have you aboard.
A pleasure to trawl Jenny! Still, grrrrrr to WP reader! Hope to get to any wartime cemetery some day. Im guessing your son has been to several now and that it’s quite a thing with your family in general.