On 10 June 1944, Oradour-sur-Glane was a sleepy little town in the German controlled part of France with no history of resistance or violence.  This changed.

It began when the local SS commander ordered his troops to round up everyone from the town, reportedly to inspect their papers.  Once the townspeople were gathered, the men were separated from the women and children.  The men were housed in barns, the women and children in the town church.  The SS then systematically killed and burned everyone from the town.  Six hundred and forty two people were killed, including one hundred and ninety three children. (for more details check out this complete site.)

No one knows why the murder was ordered as the commander responsible was killed a few days later defending against the Normandy invasion.  What is know is that this was a terrible tragedy.

So that we do not forget the horrors of war, the town has been left as it was found on 11 June as a memorial to be respectably explored.

As we explored the war torn town, feeling like we were on a movie set, two things came to mind.  The first was the similarity to Pompeii.  The violence of man-against-man left behind remains very similar to the results of a volcano.  The second was areas of more recent violence in our world--Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, for example.  Will the residents there build monuments to remember?  Have we forgotten already?

  

 

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Page created on 05 Aug 2001