Oradour sur Glane

[stona]

Today is the anniversary of the massacre of 642 men,women and children by elements of the 22nd Panzer Division - "Das Reich" at Oradour sur Glane,not far from Limoges.

Lest we forget what we were fighting for.

Steve

[geegad]

I've read a book about the massacre and seen a program about it and the one thing that stands out was one of the perpetrators says that it was just because the village was harbouring resistance and storing arms.. And that the ss are still welcome in the area

[stona]

John this is not the place for a political discussion but if you have read up on the massacre then you will be well aware of the horrific course that it took.

There is no justification, moral or legal,for what took place there. I very much doubt that the 207 children and babies,or most of the 245 women,murdered knew much about the resistance movement.

I speak French and have visited the place and discussed it with people in Limoges,including a local historian. I and can assure you that no member of "Das Reich" would be welcomed back.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

You've only got to watch the last three or four episodes of The World At War, to be reminded of the harsh realities. The opening sequence of the episode which covered this crime still lives in my memory.

The distance afforded by time allows me to admire the machines and the ordinary combatants who used them, but it was my grandfather's generation who fought in WW2, and we should never forget the repulsive and ruthless side of the Nazi coin.

[geegad]

I'm in total agreement with u one of the many war crimes committed in a barbaric war..and I think the program was the world at war I would like to visit the place I should imagine there is s very unsettling feeling been there...

[spanner570]

My wife and I visited Oradour sur Glane last year. The village has been kept, more or less, as it was after the departure of the S.S .on June 10th, June '44, and is a French National Monument.

I hope you don't mind Steve, but here is a link to the brief thread I did about our visit to this very sad place.

http://www.scale-models.co.uk/chit-chat/12456-sobering-experience.html

We both came away emotionally wrecked. Particularily after entering the tiny church (which is far, far smaller than a tennis court) where over 400 women and children were herded, and seeing the charred remains of a little pram close by the altar........

The few people who were walking around, did so very quietly, just looking at the execution barns, the well, the small church, the remains of the village buildings and reading the family memorial plaques, complete with pictures, placed here and there.....

The German officer in charge at the time, one Major Otto Dickmann eventually arrived at Normandy and during the attempt to stop the Allied advance, stepped out of his bunker, without a helmet and had his brains removed. Some maintain he did it on purpose.......

The rebuilt and rather scruffy village is just across the road from the original site. The only way into the monument is through a stark museum and into a dark underpass under the road, you then emerge onto a 'pretty little lane' (The word SILENCE is written on a notice board) which leads up to the main street of the original village....No words can describe the hammer blow that we both received when we saw what was before us........

John, from talking to the locals and around the Limoges area generally (as best I could) Germans are just about tolerated, but Das Reich, SS...Never!

Thanks for the thread Steve,

Ron

[stona]

Ron,I remember the sign at the entrance "Souviens-toi"....Remember,that's all I'd ask anyone to do.

On a lighter note the museum or "centre of remembrance" is a truly rotten bit of architecture,unless they knocked it down and built a new one in the last twenty years!

Cheers

Steve

I forgot to say thanks for the link to the thread covering your visit. The memorial plaque "A LA MEMOIRE de NOS CHERS MARTYRS" made me smile in a sad sort of way. Fernand Bureau was 8 1/2. That half would have been important to the young boy.

[yak face]

I remember reading rons post about his visit there a while back, a very chilling account. Its important that things like this are remembered , thanks for the reminder steve. .. tony

[Guest]

I also have read about the massacre in France during WWII, I think there was a couple of villages wiped out in Poland as well but the biggest shock came when I found out the Russian cost over 4000 towns and villages of the Byelorussia region alone, wiped out mostly by but not entirely the SS Einsatzgruppen units.

If you can get hold of a film called “come and see” (Russian film with sub titles) it shows it at it’s most brutal .

Jeff.

[BarryW]

I visited there several years ago. We were told that the SS attacked the wrong village, they thought it was Oradour sur Vienne which is not too far away which was a hotbed of resistance. I have stayed many times at a place called Cussac near Oradour sur Vienne, one of my favourite parts of France.

I will never forget that burnt out car still sat in the high street of Oradour sur Glane and the silence.... It was a terrible crime - we must never forget.

[Guest]

The village is not for from where I live. I visited a few years back and it was very eerie knowing what happened here.

If I remember rightly, there was a tram stop in the village; I'm sure I read that a tram came through while the massacre was taking place, and people from there were also removed and executed!

Not too far away in Tulle, (on the 9th June 1944) the same unit also massacred 97 civilians picked at random, who were then hung from street lamps and balconies. I'm guessing this unit committed similar atrocities while they headed north to Normandy.

Thank God it's peaceful now, thanks to those who sacrificed so much to defeat Nazi Germany.

[Guest]

Today is also the anniversary of a similar massacre in Graignes, Normandy where the 17 SS Panzergrenadiers murdered soldiers of the 82nd Airborne who were defending the village. The soldiers were split into two groups and marched off, one group being bayoneted and thrown into a pond while the other was forced to dig a pit. Upon its completion, they were shot in the back of the head and thrown in the pit. The Germans then returned to the village where the priest Fr Leblastier and Lebarbarchon were shot in the church. Two elderly sisters were bayoneted in their beds with a further 28 villagers killed. The village was then burned and the church blown up. This was in reprisal for feeding and harbouring the Americans who had made for the church after a scattered drop on D-Day itself. I have visited the village a couple of times and it is tiny. It is not the same scale as the murders in Oradour but another example of what the SS were capable of and another reason to celebrate the liberation of Europe from the Nazis and to remember those who gave their lives in the process.

Keith