Thus far I have tried to be mildly entertaining, witty, observational and light hearted. Today has forced to abandon all the former aspects of my writing. I don't know the best way to do this so I'm just going to go for it, cold hard facts.
Oradour is a small village just West of Limoges in the heart of the Limousin region, in 1944 it had population of a
little over a thousand, most of whom lived in the out-laying areas and only around 400 actually lived in the village. In the early months of 1944 high ranking officers of the Nazi special branch, the SS had taken up office in Limoges, their task to put an end to resistance fighting in the region and quash believe in the cause. It was on this basis and this alone that the following took place.
June 10th 1944 saw Ordour busier that normal, a couple of local schools had closed, swelling the infant school and the all girl primary school beyond capacity and the monthly supply of tobacco rations had arrived bring men from the far reaches of the village into its heart. Armed with this knowledge the SS struck. They arrived at lunch time and quickly surrounded the village, by 3pm they had rounded up all inhabitants of the village and separated them into 5 groups, 4 consisting of men and one large group consisting of women and children, the latter were taken to the church. The four groups of men were moved to various sites across the village and upon the signal from the SS captain in charge, shot, all 250 of them. Of the 200 women and 200 children in the church, one escaped, the rest were forced to stay in the church while the SS soldiers set it on fire, anybody who attempted to leave via the large doors was shot.
The SS soldiers then rounded up all the bodies of the men and burned them before burying them in a mass grave, the same burial that met the remains of the women and children, thus leaving almost everyone unidentifiable.
The town was then scorched and in part exploded before being abandoned by the troops.
A total of 642 people lost their lives that day.
General Charles de Gaulle ordered that the village be left undisturbed and unrestored and in the condition that the SS left it in 1944 so that future generations could experience the devastation.
Today I have seen war damaged buildings, I have seen cars left to rot in garages, no longer tended by their owners, I have seen sewing machines still on kitchen tables and I have seen the gut -wrenching ruins of a school. Today I have stood where innocent men my own age were gunned down and I have stood in the remains of a church where 450 women and children were burned alive all some 70 years previous. They say that war is hell but this is evidence of a new level of hell, wars are fought by soldiers and these were not soldiers, this was slaughter.
I stood in the memorial and looked at the marble walls, each one adorned with the name and ages of each person who lost their life that day. I made a point of reading each one. The youngest was 8 days old.
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