Oradour-sur-Glane

Oradour lies 15 miles from Limoges and has a sad tale to tell. We start at the visitor centre that describes the background and the incident that changed the village for ever. 

The time is June 1944, and it’s just after D Day; Resistance activity has increased dramatically all over the country. The 2^nd SS Panzer Division has been rushed to the area to repel the threat of the Allied advance, and is also facing local Resistance operations, in particular the kidnapping of an SS officer near Limoges. The commander of the Das Fuhrer Regiment, part of the 2^nd SS Panzer Division, decides on a reprisal against the locals because of the Resistance nuisance.

On the afternoon of 10^th June, a squad of about 180 SS soldiers began searching isolated farms to the south of Oradour, working their way towards the village which they sealed off on arrival. The inhabitants were told to assemble at the Fairground so that papers could be checked and an arms search carried out. This is the Fairground today.

The villagers were largely unalarmed by this, having been under the authoritarian rule for four years; in any event, the village was not a Resistance stronghold nor were there any arms caches to be discovered.

The women and children, 452 in total, were taken to the church, so they were told, while the arms search was in progress. 

The 190 men left were split into 6 groups and held in different places ostensibly while this arms search was being conducted. However, at a given signal, they were all simultaneously shot dead. A plaque commemorates each of these 6 locations.

The church containing the women and children was then set on fire and locked after being sprayed inside with gunfire. All perished, apart from one adult. The heat was so great it melted the bell that still lies today where it fell.

The simple, dignified interior of the now roofless church still shows signs of the fire and numerous bullet holes.

It doesn’t stop there, even: the SS now burned the whole village. The horror of it all was revealed in the days following. Photos from that time in the visitor centre recorded the destruction; in fact, one’s own photos seem to capture the mood of desolation better in black and white as in by my next two snaps. 

After the war, the French Government decided that the village should be left exactly as it was to serve as a monument to the war crime committed on that day. Even the doctor’s car is left to rust in the crumbling ruins.

Much of the contents of the houses, shops and workshops, too, were left. This is what remains of the smithy.

You may ask, why preserve this chilling time capsule?  Do visitors come simply from morbid curiosity? What real purpose does it serve? We remembered asking these same questions after visiting Auschwitz.

The answer has to be that it keeps the awfulness of these events alive and real when standing in the very place where they happened. If it influences some visitors into adopting a less ruthless approach and that is also passed on to their children, monuments such as this can be a positive force. Atrocities have taken place throughout history, some on a much greater scale, so humanity’s not going to change dramatically, but just maybe places like Oradour can alter the future a little for the better.