Oradour, France

By On 23/10/2024

Oradour, France. Not the most happy memory of our recent trip through France, but definitely the most impressive.

On 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 643 civilians, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS.

The Germans murdered everyone they found in the village. Among the dead were people who were just passing by at the time the SS company arrived. Men were brought into barns and sheds, where they were shot in the legs and doused with gasoline before the barns were set on fire. Women and children were herded into a church that was set on fire; those who tried to escape were machine gunned.

The village was never rebuilt. A new village with the same name was built nearby after the war. President Charles de Gaulle ordered that the ruins of the old village be preserved as a permanent memorial and museum.

 

Comments are closed.