Oradour-sur-Glane
 
 
Le Village Martyr Oradour-sur-Glane is situated close to Limoges, in central France. During the Second World War it was, from 1940 to 1942, part of Vichy France, the supposedly independent state, allied to Germany. This illusion of independence was shattered in 1942 when all of France was occupied and taken under German control.  The church as it is today. During 1944 the amount of Resistance activity in central France increased, one of the reasons being the expected Allied invasion. Whatever difficulties could be caused to the occupying German troops would obviously be to the Allies' advantage. The Limousin, as well as the area around Lyon, was a considerable problem for the occupiers. In the Limousin the task of seeking and neutralising the Resistance was the responsibility of the SS Division 'Das Reich'. This division had been badly mauled on the Eastern Front, and had returned to Germany to regroup. The new drafts were not so carefully selected as earlier SS recruits had been. Many were conscripts, and some were from Alsace, a region which had been a part of France until 1940. There were some mercenaries - soldiers enlisted purely for pay, all a far cry from the original ‘racial purity’ of the SS. By the beginning of 1944 the occupying Germans had a good idea that an invasion was imminent, although they were unclear as to where it would take place. It was believed that the invasion would take place in France, probably in May or June. The SS Division ‘Das Reich’, a component of Army Group G, was tasked to protect the Atlantic coast from the Loire to the Spanish border - and also to suppress Resistance activities within its zone and to maintain freedom of communications between the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. The composition of the Division was formidable - an army in miniature. It comprised: The 3rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment ‘Deutschland’ The 4th Panzer Grenadier Regiment ‘Der Fuehrer’, and the 2nd SS Panzer Artillery Regiment There were also anti-aircraft defences, motorised reconnaissance units, light tanks, assault tanks and support units - even a mobile sanitary unit. The Division's orders were simple. They were to maintain freedom of communications (including rail and road links as well as telephones and telegraphs) at all costs, and in the event of invasion to make for the disembarkation area as quickly as possible. En route they were to eliminate any Resistance formations they could find, and to repress 'with the greatest firmness' any civilian populations believed to be aiding them. On June 6th, 1944 - 'D-Day' - Allied forces landed in Normandy. ‘Das Reich’ had their orders. In the early afternoon of June 10th, just as the occupants of the town were finishing lunch, elements of the 4th Panzer Grenadier Regiment 'Der Fuehrer' surrounded the town. At first the occupants were untroubled - they had rarely seen a German during the occupation, and there had never been any Resistance activity in the town. Soon, however, they were summoned by the beating of the town drum to the champ de foire, the fairground off of the main street. German patrols searched houses to ensure that all of the population attended - supposedly for their identity papers to be checked. There were no exceptions, and schoolchildren were walked in crocodiles by their teachers.  Only one child, Roger Godfrin, escaped. He was a refugee from Alsace, and he knew not to trust the Germans in such situations. Once in the champ de foire the men were separated from the women and children. The men remained in the square, the women and children, many in push-chairs, were taken to the church. Some cyclists passing through the village by sheer bad luck were seized so that they could not raise the alarm in the surrounding countryside. After an hour, whilst houses and shops were searched and looted, the men were divided into six groups and marched off to barns and garages around the town into which machine guns had already been installed. This is the account of what happened next from a survivor: “At around 4 o’clock an explosion in the village signalled the start of the massacre. It began simultaneously in each ordeal site. The SS fired low, at the men's legs. The executioners continued until nothing moved. They then climbed over the bloody bodies and finished off those unfortunates who were still moving. Then, quite calmly, chatting to each other, they covered the bodies with straw, hay, wood and anything that would burn. Their work finished, they left, and the survivors began to talk. The dying called out, moaned, groaned, cried... “Careful, there they are!” a voice cried. Silence ensued. The SS lit the fire they had prepared, and as the flames started to take hold, they moved away. The fire roared. It was dreadful. The dying and the mortally wounded were burned alive.”  From one barn five wounded men managed to escape the inferno. Inside the church the women and children, locked in, heard the machine guns and cries. After some time - about an hour - the door of the church was opened and two Germans came in. They did not free their prisoners, instead they placed a large container in the middle of the church and left, lighting cords which came from the container as they went. Almost at once there was an explosion and a thick cloud of smoke, and of course there was panic. The weight of bodies attempting to break out of the church broke down the door of the sacristy, but outside the Germans had set up another machine gun, which mowed down the women and children as they tried to escape. Others now began to fire in through the windows at the mass of women in the nave of the church. One woman managed to escape through a broken window. One boy and six adults had escaped the massacre, about another twenty had fled at the first sight of the Germans. 240 women, 205 children and 197 men had died.  The German troops spent the night in Oradour, eating and drinking what they had looted. 328 buidings were systematically burned. When they had left those who had evaded the massacre returned. The sight they were confronted with was one of the profoundest horror. The memorial for Oradour’s dead of 1914-1918 shows the bullet marks of the massacre of the women and children in the church. Some days later the survivors were ‘officially’ allowed to return to bury their dead. Their killers were on their way to Normandy, where they would suffer considerable losses, including their commanding officer, Dickmann, at the Battle of Mortain.  Meanwhile it was decided that Oradour would not be rebuilt, but would be preserved as it stood after the massacre, as a memorial to all of those villages in France and throughout occupied Europe which had been destroyed for reprisals or to 'pacify' the inhabitants. In March 1945 Charles de Gaulle said: “Oradour-sur-Glane is the symbol of the calamities of the country. The memory must be kept alive, for a similar calamity must never occur again.” In July 1999 Jacques Chirac opened a new visitor's centre at the site. His speech drew together the many occasions when atrocities have been committed against civilians in this century, up to events in Kosovo. He re-dedicated the Village Martyr as a memorial and a lesson for all of the world. At the entrance to the village there is a simple sign: Souviens-toi Remember  If you wish to visit Oradour it is situated about 19km north-east of Limoges on the D9. There are many hotels in Limoges, and there are gîtes and Chambres d’Hôte accomodations in the surrounding countryside