See also: Oradour

Oradour-on-Glane is a Commune Frenchwoman, located in the department of the High-Vienna and the area the Limousin.

The name of the commune, in the dialect the Limousin of the language Occitan E, is Orador de Glana . The inhabitants are called Radounauds .

The name of Oradour, which comes from the Latin word oratorium, indicates that there was, as of the Roman epoch, an oratory, i.e. a furnace bridge and a place of prayers for deaths, that one buried then at the edge of the roads and often in the vicinity of the crossroads. The current borough, built after the Second world war, is located at the variation of the ruins of the village which was the theater of the massacre the June 10th 1944, perpetrated by the Division S Das Reich.

Oradour before the massacre

Oradour-on-Glane was then a village limousine active and ordinary, with its trade, cafés with rooms and craftsmen. She saw mainly Agriculture until the crisis of the sector, which makes depopulate the campaigns. There remain indeed nothing any more but two farms in 1944 on the commune.

At the beginning of the xxesiècle, the village is modernized with in particular the arrival of electricity and the departmental tram, which connects it to Limoges, distant of a score of kilometers in south-east. The census of 1936 gives a report on a population of 1.574 hearts.

In addition to all these trade, Oradour has a municipal harmony, an angling club and three schools. The war in 1940 mobilized 168 men of the commune. 113 men could return to the village as of the armistice.

In spite of the proximity of resistant and the reception of Lorraine refugees (Charly-Oradour, village native of the Moselle region was named thus in homage to the victims, of which 39 of them came from the small village), the village was relatively saved by the war until the massacre. The population, like the majority of France, after having adhered to the ideas and the person Marshal Pétain, emitted criticisms increasingly virulent with regard to the policy collaborationnist, awaiting firmly a victory of the Alliés.

Massacre Oradour-on-Glane

See also: Massacre of Oradour-on-Glane

The authors of the drama belong to the 3rd company of the 4th SS-Panzer-Regiment Der Führer of the 2 {{E}} SS-Panzer-Division '' Das Reich ''.

At rest around Bordeaux and of Montauban, division makes movement towards Normandy at once known the allied unloading. Constantly badgered by FFI, it counteracts by bloody reprisals.

June 9th 1944, with Tulle released since the two days before by Resistance, 99 men are hung.

The June 10th 1944, after the arrival of German in the borough of Oradour-on-Glane, the Rural policeman informs the inhabitants that they all must gather, without any exception and, about the Fairground, provided with their papers, for an identity check.

The S penetrate in all the houses, and, under the threat of their weapons, oblige everyone, even the patients, to go on the gathering place. One by one or by groups, conduits and supervised by the S, the villagers mass little by little on the Fairground. The Germans also will seek inhabitants of the close hamlets. The farmers must give up their work. Several people are killed.

The Germans divide the population into two groups: on a side women and children, other men.

Massacre men

The men are divided between six places of torments: they are grapeshots there then their bodies are covered with faggots and bales of straw at which the Nazis put fire. According to some survivors, the Nazis draw low and in the legs from their victims; fire is lit on still alive men. The declaration of an survivor establishes that they still spoke; some, slightly wounded, could escape, the majority of the others were certainly burned alives.

Massacre women and children

The group locked up in the church includes/understands all the women and all the children of the village. Soldiers place in the nave, close to the chorus, a kind of rather bulky case whose cords exceed that they let trail on the ground. These cords having been lit, fire is communicated to the machine in which a strong explosion occurs and from where a black smoke, thick and suffocating gets clear. A shooting bursts in the church; then of the straw, of the faggots, the chairs are thrown shovel-mixes on the bodies which lie on the flagstones. The Nazis put at it then fire. Heat so strong that at the entry of this church one can see the melted bell, was crushed on the ground. Remains of 1m20 height recovered the bodies.

Only one woman survives carnage: Marguerite Rouffanche, born Thurmeaux. Its testimony constitutes all that it is possible to know of the drama. She lost in slaughter, her husband, her son, her two daughters and her grandson seven months old.

The chorus of the church including/understanding three windows, Mrs. Rouffanche moved towards largest, that of the medium and using a stool which was used to light the candles she managed to reach it. The stained glass being broken, it precipitated by the opening. After a jump of three meters, it lands with the foot of the church and was wounded by gaining a nearby garden. Dissimulated among garden pea rows, it was delivered only the following day around 5 p.m.

Only one child will escape the massacre, being fled instead of joining the church.

Other massacres

The S inspect the houses of the borough again; they kill there all the inhabitants who had been able to escape their first research, in particular those which them physical status had prevented from going on the place of the gathering. Thus the rescue squads will find in various dwellings the bodies flarings of some old men impotents.

A special correspondent of FFI, present at Oradour in the very first days, indicates that one collected in the furnace of a baker the calcined remainders of five people: the father, the mother and their three children.

An containing well of many corpses is discovered in a farm, too broken up to be identified; they will be left on the spot. Were these victims thrown in the well already dead or alive? (the bodies were found only 3 days afterwards, how is possible that they are in such a state?)

On the whole, 642 people were massacred at the time of this day, where cruelty was with its apogee.

Memorial

After the war, the general de Gaulle decided that the village would not be rebuilt, but would become a memorial with the pain of France under the occupation. The rebuilding of the new borough of the commune of Oradour-on-Glane was considered on another site as of July 1944.

In 1999, the village was devoted village martyr by the president Jacques Chirac. Since this date, the Center of the memory connects the ruins to the new borough. Thanks to a permanent exposure covering all the context, this information center prepares the visitor with the visit of the village martyr.

Visitors

The whole of the memorial and the village martyr make Oradour-on-Glane the site more visited in the Limousin. (approximately 300.000 people per annum.)

Lawsuit and reactions

After 8 years of waiting, very long for the survivors and the victims' families, the lawsuit of the 21 soldiers - out of 64 identified - having taken part in the massacre of Oradour takes place in January - February 1953 in front of the military tribunal of Bordeaux. The February 12th 1953, the court pronounces the following sentences:

• the German soldier more graded is condemned to death,

• another German who could prove his absence of Oradour on June 10th is released,
• 4 other Germans are condemned to sorrows of forced labors from ten to twelve years,
• only Alsacien volunteer of the group is condemned to death,
• 9 Alsatian are condemned to sorrows of forced labors from five to twelve years,
• 4 the other Alsatian ones are condemned to custodial sentences from five to eight years.

The Alsatian population protests against the sorrows inflicted with the In spite of us, because those were constrained to carry out the orders of the German superiors. The lawsuit of Bordeaux symbolizes to some extent it Malayan Alsatian: the French population does not have, in its great majority, not knowledge of the drama of the 130.000 Alsatian ones and built-in Natives of the Moselle region of force in the German armies. As for the families of the victims - and in the Limousin as a General, they find the sentences scandalously lenient: all the participants in the massacre should have been condemned to death.

The law of amnesty voted as of on February 19th accentuates this feeling of insult. The response of Oradour is immediate. Let us quote:

• the request so that the commemorative site is returned to him,

• the decision of the ANFM to return the Military Cross decreed to Oradour in 1947, as well as the Légion of honor decreed with association in 1949,
• the refusal to transfer ashes from the martyrs in the crypt built by the State,
• the refusal of the presence of representatives of the State to the commemorative ceremonies (exception being the visit of the Général de Gaulle in 1962),
• the inscription on a plate at the entry of the ruins of the names of the deputies who had voted the amnesty.

The center of Memory is a call to the reflection to avoid that other massacres do not take place and thus to perpetuate the concept of Duty to remember.

Administration

Demography

See too

Satellite sight WikiMapia

Gallery photographs

Random links:

Control management | Idris Muhammad | Prime Ministers of Guinea-Bissau | Tulari | Raymond Franjou