Oradour-sur-Glane is an especially touching memorial in my opinion.  I translated the inscription outside the church, and it says, “Silence. The hundreds of women and children here were massacred by the Nazis. You that pass collect yourselves and who that believe make a prayer for the victims and their families. In the town remaining in lonely ruins outside the Cross of Christ. Bernadette our Lady of Lourdes. Come to me you that suffer says the Christ, do that he tells you says the Virgin. Requiescat in pace. That they rest in peace. Because they are living in eternity.”  I have always had an interest in WWII, especially the horrific human rights violations that went on in Germany and France at the hands of the Nazis.  My family is directly descended from Jews in Germany, so this memorial caught my eye.
  In response to the question asked “Should natural change over time-a gradual healing of ruin-be seen as part of the memorial site?  Or should this site’s curators strive to preserve the original ruins as much as possible, defying nature in a call for remembrance?”  I believe that as long as there are still memorial plaques on the site, they should allow nature to take over.  It seems that letting the landscape heal would show that time heals all wounds.  We want people to remember what happened in Oradour-sur-Glane because we don’t want it to happen ever again.  I don’t think that allowing change would take away from the memory of the victims here.
  If this memorial was on my behalf, or on behalf of my family I would feel honored.  Memorials are an especially important aspect of transitional justice because it places emphasis on the victims and the tragedies they encountered.  It is important to do this because so much of the transitional justice process focuses on the perpetrators of human rights violations.  If memorializations are combined with other transitional justice techniques like reparations, prosecutions, truth-seeking commissions, and the reforming of government and policing institutions; real change can be made in the right direction.

    – Sarah Creamer (Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:23:09 -0500)