“Oradour was not a crime due to madness but the logic of a system. We must remember this not to see it again, we must live and build a world in which crime will be folly again, and reason will be peace.”
- Claude Roy
June 20, 2022
As we cross the half way mark of this episode we turn our attention south. We left the overly baked Loire Valley and drove towards the Dordogne.
Eventually we are making our way to the Provence region. The whole idea for this Episode came from a book I read, “A Year in Provence”, 3 years ago. So, naturally, I am really looking forward to that leg of the journey.
The Dordogne is about a 4 hour drive from Ambiose and we wanted to break up the trek with a stop at a sobering place featured in Atlas Obscura.
June 10, 1944 was a Saturday. The weather was much like today then, partly cloudy skies with a high in the mid 80’s. The children in the village were looking forward to a favorite pastime, fishing in the local stream. Oradour-sur Glane was not a particularly remarkable village located in the region of Vichey France - the government that collaborated with the Nazi’s.
The D-day invasion happened 4 days ago and a massive Allied army was about 100 miles North of them. There was no internet then so it is doubtful they the villagers even knew of the invasion.
It was a typical morning until early in the day a group of German soldiers including members of the Waffen SS entered the village. They were under the command of Adolf Diekmann. A informant had told him the village may be holding a SS officer captive. They were not holding anyone.
All of the residents were ordered to assemble in the main square. The women and children were separated from the men and locked in the local church. The men were taken to local barns. There they were shot in the legs so they could not run, then set on fire.
But that was not enough.
The soldiers set off an incindiary device in the locked church and threw tear gas into the windows. Any of the children or women who tried to escape were shot.
They watched the church burn until the screams stopped and there was nothing left but ashes.
Then, the soldiers set fire to every building in the village.
In all, 642 were murdered; 205 were children. No captive SS officer was found.
A few men and one woman survived to tell the story.
In the aftermath - Colonel Diekmann was criticized for his actions even by General Rommel as going too far. He passed it off as a routine retaliatory action in response to Partisan activity nearby. Diekman was killed a few weeks later in Normandy. only one member of the 200 men who participated in the massacre received jail time, and it was limited.
After the war President Charles de Gaulle ordered a new town be built but not on the original site. He ordered the original site be left untouched as a reminder to what happened here.
Today, the weeds have grown and the cars have rusted but it is otherwise untouched from that awful day 78 years ago. Walking through the ruins is a haunting experience.
De Gaulle did make one change. He added a sign with a single word that greets every pilgrim that come here.
Souviens-Toi
“Remember.”
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