Hello all, long time no post.
So, this week we have been on holiday in France, and being only 2 hours away from Oradour-sur-Glane, it would be wrong not to pay it a visit.
Oradour is here:
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Oradour-sur-Glane,+France&hl=en&ll=45.928938,1.042178&spn=0.004366,0.010568&sll=52.8382,-2.327815&sspn=7.767092,21.643066&oq=orado&t=h&hnear=Oradour-sur-Glane,+Haute-Vienne,+Limousin,+France&z=17
It was the 644 villagers of this quiet French hamlet that suffered a terrible fate at the hands of the soldiers of the Der Führer Regiment of the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich on the 10th June 1944.
Upon arrival, the soldiers gathered all of the inhabitants, (the oldest was 90, the youngest 1 week old), under the guise of checking their papers for resistance fighters. To this day, it is not fully understood what possessed the commander and his troops to slaughter the entire village, however the woman and children were marched to the church, and then the men were sorted into groups, taken to various barns around the village and machine gunned, then burnt, The same fate befell the woman and children. Only 6 people survived the massacre, and only one of those was a woman. 6 unfortunate young people on a cycling holiday merely passing through Oradour were caught up in the events, wrong place, wrong time. Later in the day the superintendent on a visiting electric tramcar was shot dead when the soldiers turned the tram back, stating to the rest of the passengers 'we are letting you go, because we have slaughtered them all'. The soldiers looted the village and set all buildings alight to cover their tracks.
The French government declared the ruins a place for a permanent memorial, the village was rebuilt nearby, and today entry to the ruined village is through a modern museum.
In we go:
The church:
Whilst there, I bought a book about the events, and it is written by one of the survivors, Robert Hebras. He dedicates the book as follows:
"For all those who, throughout the centuries and the world, have suffered intolerance, hate and violence at the hands of other men"
Enough said I reckon.
Regards
Ian
So, this week we have been on holiday in France, and being only 2 hours away from Oradour-sur-Glane, it would be wrong not to pay it a visit.
Oradour is here:
https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Oradour-sur-Glane,+France&hl=en&ll=45.928938,1.042178&spn=0.004366,0.010568&sll=52.8382,-2.327815&sspn=7.767092,21.643066&oq=orado&t=h&hnear=Oradour-sur-Glane,+Haute-Vienne,+Limousin,+France&z=17
It was the 644 villagers of this quiet French hamlet that suffered a terrible fate at the hands of the soldiers of the Der Führer Regiment of the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich on the 10th June 1944.
Upon arrival, the soldiers gathered all of the inhabitants, (the oldest was 90, the youngest 1 week old), under the guise of checking their papers for resistance fighters. To this day, it is not fully understood what possessed the commander and his troops to slaughter the entire village, however the woman and children were marched to the church, and then the men were sorted into groups, taken to various barns around the village and machine gunned, then burnt, The same fate befell the woman and children. Only 6 people survived the massacre, and only one of those was a woman. 6 unfortunate young people on a cycling holiday merely passing through Oradour were caught up in the events, wrong place, wrong time. Later in the day the superintendent on a visiting electric tramcar was shot dead when the soldiers turned the tram back, stating to the rest of the passengers 'we are letting you go, because we have slaughtered them all'. The soldiers looted the village and set all buildings alight to cover their tracks.
The French government declared the ruins a place for a permanent memorial, the village was rebuilt nearby, and today entry to the ruined village is through a modern museum.
In we go:
The church:
Whilst there, I bought a book about the events, and it is written by one of the survivors, Robert Hebras. He dedicates the book as follows:
"For all those who, throughout the centuries and the world, have suffered intolerance, hate and violence at the hands of other men"
Enough said I reckon.
Regards
Ian