ORADOUR SUR GLANE | AUG 2014
On our photo journeys, we often visit the best of mankind in terms of architecture, arts, nature, charity ... But sometimes we stumble upon the worse of mankind ...
D-Day : June 6th 1944. The Allied forces disembark en masse on the beaches of Normandy, France. The German high command immediately sends supplies and troops to reinforce the French part of their Atlantik Wall. The French resistance, well informed about the allied invasion, tries to hinder the German convoys as much as they can. In the village of Saint-Junien, near Limoges, the French resistance blows up a bridge while a German convoy is passing buy. Two German soldiers are killed.
June 10th 1944, 4 days after D-Day. German SS-troops under the command of Major Diekmann, encircle the village of Oradour sur Glane and assemble all the inhabitants for an identity check. They also install several machine-guns. They separate the men from the women and children, which they lock up in the church. Late afternoon, they open fire on the men. They first aim for the legs of the men, so that they cannot flee. The air is filled with screams of pain. The women and children try to leave the church. German gunfire obliges them to stay inside. A bomb is detonated in the church and the women and children are partially asphyxiated. The German SS-troops put the church on fire. Because the fire doesn't take to well, they throw burning chairs and other burning stuff on the women and childen inside, still alive. Only one woman will survive the inferno, protected from the flames by the dead corpses of women and children on top of her.
After the SS-troops have executed all the men, they put the entire village on fire. The number of surviving men is unknown to me, certainly one survived the massacre. Some of the commanding SS-officers will later (1953) declare on their trial that they consider what they did at Oradour sur Glane as totally normal.
642 people died in the massacre : 205 children (the youngest being 8 days old), 240 women and 197 men.
When General Charles de Gaulle visited Oradour shortly after the war was finished, he decided that the burnt village should remain as it was as a memory of war.
Moreover, it was decided that the new buildings of the village of Oradour could be built in only one color : grey.
SILENCE ... REMEMBER ... SOUVIENS-TOI ...
D-Day : June 6th 1944. The Allied forces disembark en masse on the beaches of Normandy, France. The German high command immediately sends supplies and troops to reinforce the French part of their Atlantik Wall. The French resistance, well informed about the allied invasion, tries to hinder the German convoys as much as they can. In the village of Saint-Junien, near Limoges, the French resistance blows up a bridge while a German convoy is passing buy. Two German soldiers are killed.
June 10th 1944, 4 days after D-Day. German SS-troops under the command of Major Diekmann, encircle the village of Oradour sur Glane and assemble all the inhabitants for an identity check. They also install several machine-guns. They separate the men from the women and children, which they lock up in the church. Late afternoon, they open fire on the men. They first aim for the legs of the men, so that they cannot flee. The air is filled with screams of pain. The women and children try to leave the church. German gunfire obliges them to stay inside. A bomb is detonated in the church and the women and children are partially asphyxiated. The German SS-troops put the church on fire. Because the fire doesn't take to well, they throw burning chairs and other burning stuff on the women and childen inside, still alive. Only one woman will survive the inferno, protected from the flames by the dead corpses of women and children on top of her.
After the SS-troops have executed all the men, they put the entire village on fire. The number of surviving men is unknown to me, certainly one survived the massacre. Some of the commanding SS-officers will later (1953) declare on their trial that they consider what they did at Oradour sur Glane as totally normal.
642 people died in the massacre : 205 children (the youngest being 8 days old), 240 women and 197 men.
When General Charles de Gaulle visited Oradour shortly after the war was finished, he decided that the burnt village should remain as it was as a memory of war.
Moreover, it was decided that the new buildings of the village of Oradour could be built in only one color : grey.
SILENCE ... REMEMBER ... SOUVIENS-TOI ...