June 10, 1944
On the afternoon of June 10, 1944 approximately 180 soldiers of the 2nd SS Panzer Division 'Das Reich' entered the small French village of Oradour-Sur-Glane, twenty miles north-west of Limoges, France. They were led by
Sturmbannführer Adolf Otto Diekmann.
The previous day Diekmann's best friend, Helmut Kämpfe, had commanded a detachment sent to the village of Guéret to drive off resistance fighters who had the village under attack. Finding no fighting upon arriving, Kämpfe turned his forces around and headed back to Limoges. Recklessly advancing ahead of his troops, Kämpfe was captured by the resistance, and believed to have been executed that evening, or the next day in Breuilaufa, north of Oradour-Sur-Glane. Diekmann was ordered to go to Oradour-Sur-Glane and select thirty (30) hostages against the release of Kämpf.
We, of course, will never know the truths of the causes and effects of that day. The stories run the gamut from quiet village with no resistance ties to a store house for resistance weapons. It is worth noting that in no after-action report did the German units mention finding any weapons. Of what is known, only a few facts really matter: 642 men, women, and children were executed that day.
The numbers of children differ. Even the SS troopers had some difficulty segregating the men and boys, in the end seeming to settle on the age of fifteen (15). One mother succeeded in getting her 16-year-old handicapped son declared a child and sent to the church with her and the other women and children; a distinction only serving to determine with which parent he died.
So there is disagreement in the number of children massacred that day. Let's settle on the smaller number.
One hundred-ninety-three.
193
193
193
193
193
It is a horrendous number in any size or font
CHILDREN
It would be huge if only one
We have an amazing ability to deflect the undecipherable; to evade the unbelievable. Since the majority of movies and photos of this period are preserved in the mostly black and white images shown on the Discovery or History channels, we can subliminally think, "Hey, it wasn't really real...the world doesn't look like that." But that is not the way it happened. The events of this date were in pure, clear summer colors. Just as they are for us today.
As you enter the village you see this small courtyard to one of the first homes. The doorway you see leads to a small well. Five to seven
bodies were discovered there.
After the mass killings, the troops searched the village, checking each house for any hiding within, killing any found, and destroying the buildings.
But it was in color that day.
Near the church. Did any run down this alleyway, seeking to escape out the back? Perhaps a couple.
Most didn't conceive the possibility for the events which came after the town crier called them to meet in the village center for a documents check.
I suspect the trees and grass were equally green that day.
A right on Rue Emile Desourteaux, one of the main streets of the village. The building shown was the workshop of Messr. Beaulieu.
Gray and green today with bright blue in the sky.
A courtyard near the Beaulieu Forge. In this street, near this spot, a group of cyclists on an outing from Limoges were stopped shortly after the citizens were dispersed to the church and the various barns. Once the killing started the cyclists were executed in the street.
Vibrant in color today.
The mayor, Jean Desourteaux, a retired doctor, was the grandson of the namesake of the main street. His son, Jacques, the current doctor, returned from a patient visit as the roundup was being made. He died with his father and the other men of the village, his car remaining where he parked it on that day.
Red rust has replaced the shiny black paint on the car.
The citizens were called to the fairgrounds (down the street to the left) by the town crier on the instructions of the Mayor. Once gathered, about 2:30pm, a German officer, believed to be Diekman, told the Mayor to select thirty citizens to be held as hostages. The mayor refused, saying the Germans would have to do that themselves. He and the officer then went to the town hall where it is believed the officer wanted to make a phone call. It is doubtful any call went through since the town operator was among those sitting on the fairground, and witnesses reported the amount of time taken was barely more than it would take to walk there and back. Upon their return, the mayor offered himself and his family as hostages, but he was refused. The citizens were then relocated within the town; the women and children to the church, and the men spread among six barns.
Some more vehicles that perished with their owners.
They, too, now closer to the color of blood than the common paint job they had on that day.
The church. It was here that the women and children were herded together.
Austere today...even in color.
About 4:00pm some young soldiers brought a large black box with strings hanging from the sides. When lit it exploded and gave off a thick black smoke. This appears to be the signal to the other detachments who began firing on the collected men, at their legs first to bring them down to stop them from running, then walking among them routinely executing them.
Madam Marguerite Rouffanche with another woman and her crying child escaped through the center window, the women standing on a small stool used to light candles during services. Cries of the baby, however, drew attention of soldiers who shot all three. Madam Rouffache, wounded, managed, after some time elapsed, to crawl off into a garden patch and hide; the other two were killed. At trial in Bordeaux after the war, several Alsatian soldiers reported a 12-year-old girl also managed to exit through this window, only to be shot on the other side.
With the explosion and the suffocating smoke the women and children moved to areas where there was more air, the altar one of them. Soldiers entered the church and started shooting and spreading straw, firewood, and chairs to stoke the fire. It is significant that those coming after the Germans left, upon entering the church, found the bodies of children behind the alter near the source of fresh air, pushed there by mothers unwilling to spare themselves over their children.
The light at the end of the sacristy would have been even more appealing through the smoke and flame of that day.
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| (Charring is still visible after sixty-seven years) |
The back of the church close to the place where Madam Rouffanche hid among the peas of the garden
Are the black patterns the result of the fires started to exterminate the women and children? Or, perhaps, the trails of ash-laden tears?
The tram station just down from the church at the south end of town. It's amazing how the tram wires have held up after so many years.
Nice colors today (and then), with large trees and green grass.
The girls school adjacent to the Desourteaux garage on Rue de Desourteaux.
The doctors' home. I wonder why it was left standing.
But it's not about buildings. It's about people.
They lived. In color.
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| Six men escaped in this garage |
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Father 65, Mother 67, Daughter 30, Granddaughter 5, Grandson 8 1/2
Martyred |
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| Sign at the Church |
The Memorial at the Fairground facing the cemetery
But these are most effective for me.
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| Oradour-Sur-Glane school picture the year before |
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| The 'Argument From Evil' is the argument that an all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good God would not allow any—or certain kinds of—evil or suffering to occur. There is then the Evidential Argument which posits that God could have a morally sufficient reason for allowing certain evils to occur—e.g., to ensure that some greater good is achieved as a consequence of an evil. The fundamental problem with this latter argument is, obviously, why so much? And then, children? How can such things happen to children? |
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| Where were you? |
