Oradour-sur-Glane

Today we reached Oradour-Sur-Glane, a place we knew we had to see for ourselves. This is the village that on the 10th June 1944 was surrounded by the Germans who murdered every man, woman and child they could find in the village and surrounding areas. They also ransacked the village and burnt every building. The men were separated from the woman and children and taken to the barns and garages in the village where they were shot and burned alive. The woman and children were all put into the church and it was set on fire, any who tried to escape were shot, one woman survived by throwing herself out of the window falling many feet to the ground, she was shot but managed to crawl into the grass and hide for the hours it took before the Germans left.

The village has been kept as it was left by the Germans as a memorial and is referred to as the martyrs village. A new village also called Oradour-Sur-Glane was rebuilt very close to the original.

The museum was unfortunately closed for some significant renovations, but you can walk around the whole village and visit the cemetary. It is an eerie place but also in such a beautiful setting, you can imagine what life was like for the villages here before war came to them, there are signs for the schools, the doctors, the restaurants, hotels, boulangerie – all the aspects of normal village life.

The old tram lines are still there, cars, sewing machines, bed frames all where they were left after being burnt. They don’t know exactly how many people died that Saturday afternoon as there were lots of extra people in the village that day for various activities, but officially it was 643, although estimates put that closer to 1000 souls lost.

When you walk around the cemetery instead of a single name there are plots dedicated to entire families because that is what happened in this village, entire families were murdered.