Oradour-sur-Glane

[Deleted]

Oradour is one of the most shocking towns that you can visit in France. It is near Limoges.

On June 10, 1944 the Waffen-SS slaughtered 642 villagers. This was just after D-Day, as you can see from the date.

All of the women and children were locked up in the church. The men were put in six barns where the machines guns had already been set up. The men were killed and the women and children perished in the church, that was set on fire along with all of the other buildings in the village.

Yes, there was a trial after the war, in 1953. 65 of the German soldiers were still alive, but only 21 were present at the trial. More than half were in East Germany, which did not accept extradition. 7 of the defendents were Alsatians who had been drafted into the German army after re-annexation.

20 persons were found guilty. The Alsatians were granted amnesty immediately after the trial. The Germans went to prison but they had all been released by 1958.

The last Oradour trial took place in 1983. An SS officer who gave the order to shoot 20 men in a barn was tracked down in East Germany. He was sentenced to life imprisonment but was released from prison in reunified Germany in 1997. He died free in 2007.

General de Gaulle decided that the village would never be rebuilt, and it has remained the same as the day it was destroyed. A new Oradour was built a few hundred meters away.

Here are 4 photos that I took of Oradour when I visited (I might find a few more to post), and it is one of the most painful visits that one can make anywhere in the world.

[Deleted]

I forgot to add that this event remains so painful in France that 2010 is the very first year that representatives of the region of Alsace were allowed to attend the commemoration.

[cigalechanta]

I have been there twice on the way visiting friends who live near Potiers in a small village.
I think it is a memerable experience but they have ruinned it by putting in broken dishes that were not
at that time. I consider it demeaning.

[cigalechanta]

www.scrapbookpages.com/oradour-sur-glane/oldphotos/Survivors.html

[bixaorellana]

It is most interesting to see this today, as earlier in the day I was discussing the twin towers and the Okla. City bombing with a friend. We agreed we were ambivalent about places like that being turned into museums or shrines.

However, seeing your photos of Oradour-sur-Glane, it seems obvious that some of the devastation of war needs to frozen in time so that the horror and pointlessness might remain real. We've all seen photos of ruined major cities such as London or Dresden, but as time passes and those who remember the actual events die away, something needs to be left to show what was wrought by either of the two wars in Europe. Perhaps the sad wreckage might prompt those who see it to reject the idea of war as any kind of "solution" and to always question whomever or whatever might be in power.

[lagatta]

I haven't been to Oradour, but have been to sites of two major Nazi massacres in Italy (remember, that was a friend). In Gubbio, there is a shrine to 40 townspeople who were murdered as a reprisal, and in Rome, le Fosse Ardeatine (Ardeatine Trenches, quarries or pits) where 335 men and boys were also killed as a reprisal by the Nazis, abetted by the local Fascists. Many were Jews or partisans or both, and a few were common criminals, but some were just random people picked up on the street to complete the number. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardeatine

Near Prague, there was a similar reprisal massacre at Lidice: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice with all men and boys over 16 killed outright, but the rest of the people were sent to concentration camps where most died.

It is hard to say how such horrors should be preserved, bixa. In the case of a village, conserving it and rebuilding nearby is feasable, but in Dresden, for example, eventually the people wanted to rebuild their beautiful cathedral and resented what had been the DDR policy of preserving so many war ruins (to shore up the legitimacy of the East German government).

[mickthecactus]

That is fascinating.

On my list of places to visit is Auschwitz. Wonder if I'll ever get there.

[bixaorellana]

Oh, I absolutely get your point, LaGatta. I wasn't suggesting that cities should not be rebuilt, nor that most sites of horrors or outrage should be preserved. For one thing, it would be impractical, not to mention losing its impact through duplication. One un-rebuilt town the size of Oradour-sur-Glane make more than enough of a statement.

[Deleted]

When you think of all of the towns and cities that have been rebuilt 10 times or more....

It might seem strange in North America (at least in Canada and the United States), but rebuilding demolished places is standard operating procedure in most of the world. Oradour is really an exception.