It is seldom that we – who were born and raised in America and
have no connection to the military – see the aftermath of the atrocities of
war. Yes, many of us have viewed the remnants of the World Trade Center in the
months that followed 9/11. But future generations, and those of us who have
been unable to visit New York City so far, will only see the memorial as it
rises.
Even those of us who have traveled to Europe, often see only
the sanitized version of ‘things’, long after they happened, long after the tears
have dried and those who fell have perhaps been forgotten.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the Presidents
of Germany and France commemorated the worst atrocity committed by the Germans –
on the French people – in World War II. On June 10, 1944, Nazi panzer troops
entered the tiny village of Oradour-sur-Glane, rounded-up and massacred 642 of it’s villagers…. men,
women, children… anyone who happened to be in the village that day. Only a
dozen or so – only those who were not in town that day – survived.
For those of us humane beings - who need to be reminded of
the horrors of war – thankfully that little village has been preserved… exactly
as it was on the day of the atrocity.
Visiting the village is an eerie experience. You park on one
side of the road, then cross it and enter the reception center through an
underground passageway which cannot be seen from the road or from the village itself. As you emerge from underground, you enter the
village… walking up a bit of an incline… as any visitor would have.
As you enter the village, you walk past the remnants of the
burned-out shells of houses and shops. Many of the shop signs are still clearly
visible. There are tables and a couple of chairs in the café. You can see a
sewing machine in the tailor’s shop. There are cars parked in the streets. But
everything is a hollow shell … burned out and now rusted. The trolley tracks are
still there with blades of grass growing in between. It is all so quiet, so still. Even though other
tourists are walking nearby, everyone - even teenagers - speaks in hushed,
reverent tones.
After a period of time, as you walk along the streets peering
here and peeking there, you become somewhat inured to the scene. ‘Oh just an
old abandoned village’, you think to yourself.
Then you walk down a small incline, towards the end of the village, to the church. It is a simple stone edifice,
not unlike other fieldstone churches in other small French villages. As you
enter the church, you notice that it is empty: no pews, no religious artifacts,
no remnants of the parishioners. There is nothing inside except - an alter with
three sacristy windows directly behind.
But in this emptiness… in this sunlit space… it all becomes
clear. This is the place where 247 women
and 205 children were massacred…. herded into the church, locked inside. Then
the church was set ablaze and anyone machine-gunned down - if they tried to
escape. One woman survived. She
succeeded in climbing out of a sacristy window.
But why, why did this happen… you may well ask? What could
possibly be the reason for such slaughter…. such brutality, such inhumanity.
The official answer: German retribution on the French partisans
because they had kidnapped a Waffen-SS command officer. The unofficial truth: The
partisans of the village of Oradour-sur-Vayres had kidnapped the officer. The order from the German high command had
been to arrest 30 villagers from that village and hold them until the
SS-officer was released unharmed. But,
instead, an overzealous, young German officer decided to ‘send a message’ to
the partisans of Oradour-sur-Vayres. He ordered his troops to lay waste to the partisans’
village: exterminate all of the villagers and set fire to the village. But on
that fateful morning, in his quest for revenge, in his haste, he entered the wrong village: Oradour
-sur-Glane NOT Oradour-sur-Vayres.
One cannot say enough about the absolute insanity and the inhumanity
of war.
Photos of the village appear on my Pinterest Board. I visted the village in 2010.
http://pinterest.com/roamingeurope/france-oradour-sur-glane-limosin-region/
