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Oradour-sur-Glane

France

Destroyed by the SS, the town itself has been preserved as a memorial.

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Oradour-sur-Glane

On June 10, 1944, the Der Fuhrer Regiment of the 2nd Waffen SS Panzer Division Das Reich surrounded this small town near Limoges, France, and informed the mayor that they were conducting an identity check. The soldiers ordered the town’s women and children to gather in the church and led the men into barns. Once they were certain that the entire population was accounted for, a slaughter began. The regiment assaulted the church and barns with machine guns and burned them to the ground. In all, 642 people died, and only a handful survived.

After the war ended, General Charles de Gaulle declared the village a national monument, a testament to the violence suffered by the French during World War II. It was to remain as it was left, burned and empty. A new village was constructed nearby.

References

Centre de la mémoire, Oradour-sur-Glane, official site.
External Link

Discussions

Discussion for Oradour-sur-Glane

In her study of Oradour-sur-Glane, Martyred Village, Sarah Farmer notes the “inherent impossibility” of freezing memory by attempting to preserve the burned-out ruins, decade after…

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Design of Oradour-sur-Glane

The victims of Oradour-sur-Glane are buried in a cemetery to the north of the village, where a tall column flanked by ossuaries memorializes the dead.…

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