Oradour-sur-Glane
By Fintan Lillis
9 Nov 2009
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
- Joseph Conrad
I'd been to the town before apparently - though at about 6 years of age and probably not fully appreciative of the darkness hovering and weaving through its ruins in the French countryside. Upon my return, not much had changed. The ruins were still ruined, the rusted cars still rusted but the sadness of a town utterly decimated by the evil of men was all-too-apparent this time around.
On June 10th 1944 as the Nazi Waffen-SS retreated through the Limousin countryside, they came across a quaint village by the name of Oradour-sur-Glane. They took it upon themselves to round-up, murder and burn the bodies of 642 of its residents, and partially destroy the town. Women and children were hoarded like cattle into the local church, men locked up in various houses - and at a signal, machine gun fire blazed through windows as the buildings and bodies were set alight. 1 woman and 5 men escaped, but entire generations of families were entirely wiped out. After the war Charles De Gaulle decided that the town would never be rebuilt. It would stand as a memorial to the Nazi invasion of France, and it still stands there today.
I have been to those horrific concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Dachau and there is truly nothing that compares to the arresting mental and physical wretchedness that you feel after walking the ground on which such ruthlessness and evil ruled. However standing in the middle of the main street of this, once quaint and peaceful town, a unique depth of sadness struck me that I hadn't experienced in those death camps. We were tangibly close to the life that walked and breathed here - the tram lines still run down the central main street, the baker's pots and pans still hang from the red-brick pantry wall, two old Fords still sit in the garage waiting to be repaired by the local mechanic, Singer sewing machines still grace the window sills of the local houses.
And when you run your hands along the walls littered with machine gun bullet holes and read the signs dotted around the ruins: "Here, a place of torment. A group of men were massacred and burned by the Nazis.", you realise how swiftly and maliciously life in this place was ended. Soldiers were reported to have aimed for the legs of victims to cause them to die more slowly; they watched children burn alive inside the local church; they even returned the next day to eliminate all trace of the bodies that were left. This was a grotesque display of the wickedness that human nature is capable of unleashing at its darkest hour.
There are virtually no strands of silver in this black and violent storm-cloud of history, but that the continuing existence of this memorial refuses to let us forget, lest it ever happen again.
2 responses
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Kieran Guckian gave props (9 Nov 2009):
Great introduction to these images think they are very moving, well done!
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Frank McMains said (9 Nov 2009):
Very interesting, I have never heard of this place. I'd like to see it, maybe not so much if it reminds me too much of Auschwitz-Birkenau or Dachau
