Today were went to visit Oradour-Sur-Glane a town the German Waffen-SS Soldiers over ran and destroyed on June 10th 1944..
We had been looking forward to this thanks Bruce for the recomendation. We must have spent four hours just wandering around the destroyed Village and the New town. Good day 25 degrees.
I have included the history below. Hard to believe, and makes you feel how lucky we all are.
ORADOUR-SUR-GLANCE, FRANCE
The Nazi attack took place in this town on Saturday 10th June 1944 around 2.00pm.
Four days earlier On 6th June, 1944 the Allies had landed at Normandy, this was a crucial time for the German Army. If the Germans had any chance of winning the war, they had to get to Normandy as soon as possible and stop the invasion, yet Waffen-SS soldiers took time out to go to Oradour-Sur-Glance to murder innocent civilians who were not involved in the war in any way.
Approximately 150 Waffen-SS Soldiers entered the village in the region of South Central France. For no apparent reason. Hitler's troops destroyed every building in this peaceful village and brutally murdered a total of 642 innocent men,women and children. An unexplained tragedy which has gone down in history as one of the worst ever crimes committed by the German army in World war 2.
On this day the defenseless inhabitants of Oradour-Sur-Glane were dragged out of their homes and ordered to assemble on the Fairgrounds on the pretext of checking their identity papers.
Then the women were separated from the men and marched to a small Catholic Church, carrying infants in their arms or pushing them in baby carriages.
The men lined up facing a wall then divided up into buildings, barns, garages, a smithy and a wine stone house. Around 4.00pm the SS Soldiers began firing their machine guns. Most of the men were wounded in their legs then burnt alive when every building in the village was set on fire around 5.00pm. By some miracle 6 of the men managed to escape and 5 of them survived. They testified in court about this unjustified German barbarity against blameless French civilians.
The church only had a seating capacity of 350 persons, but 245 frightened women and 207 sobbing children were forced inside at gunpoint. The women and children were locked inside the church while the SS soldiers looted all the homes in this farming village . Then around 4.00pm a couple of SS soldiers carried a gas bomb inside this holy place and set it off filling the church with noxious black smoke. Their intention was to asphyxiate them all, but their plan failed. As the women and children pressed against the doors trying to escape and struggling to breath, the SS soldiers then entered the smoke-filled church and fired hundreds of shots low inside the church in order to hit the children and babies. The church was then set on fire burning alive the women and children.
Only one women, a 47-year-old grandmother escaped from the church. She was rescued in the gardens at the back of the church 24 hours later and taken to hospital in Limoges. It took a full year for her to recover. In 1953 she testified before a French Military Tribunal in Bordeaux about
the massacre of the women and children.
Photos- remains of the old town and a few comparations with the new town.
Looks like an old homestead opposite the tram station.
The remains of an old sewing machine which would have been in the fires.
An old car which has been left in the street.
It is so sad when you see how every thing has just been left as a memorial
Looking from the street
One of the barns the men of the village were sent to.
The church were the women and children were sent to to be gassed and then burnt.
Inside the old church
Inside the new church in the new town.
Looking down the old towns main street, note the old tram lines.
Looking down the new towns main street, which they have called Ave June 10th 1944.
The Fairgrounds where all the village people were gathered on in the pretext of checking their identity. The men also thought that they were been checked for firearms so weren't too worried at first until they realised what was going on.
The town square of the new town.
When they built the new town , they laid the first foundations on10th June 1947 and the town was completed in 1955. They reconstructed the new town except the tram station which is no longer in service.
After our days trip out, we came back and had a walk around Saint Junien as we leave tomorrow.
Photos below back in Saint Junien
Main street of the old town
Church
We have enjoyed our two days here, very nice hotel.
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