Oradour-sur-Glane, 10th June 1944From Wednesday 19th May, the Centre de la Mémoire will be open every day.
Visitors must follow the appropriate
health measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19
and be prepared to show a Health Pass and an identity document such as a
passport, driving licence or any other official document carrying a
photograph of the person mentioned. A Health Pass consists of one of the
following items: 1) A vaccination certificate showing full vaccination.
2) A certificate of RT-PCR (a Polymerised Chain Reaction test) or
negative antigen test of less than 48 hours age. 3) The result of a
positive RT-PCR or antigen test attesting to recovery from Covid-19 and
dating from at least 11 days and less than 6 months from the present
time. These requirements apply to both the Centre de la Mémoire and the
ruins. (access to which is via the Centre). Wearing a face mask is mandatory from the
age of 11. |
|
The SS Panzer Division Das Reich, destroyed the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane on 10th June 1944 during WWII and today it is preserved, In a Ruined State. This website describes the history, background and events leading up to the Nazi war-crime of the massacre of the inhabitants of what is today called the Martyr village of Oradour-sur-Glane. This atrocity was carried out in the afternoon of Saturday 10th June 1944 by soldiers of the Der Führer Regiment of the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division, Das Reich. On that day, without giving any explanation for their actions, they killed a total of 642 men, women and children, leaving only a few unintended survivors. They then destroyed the entire village of Oradour and to this day there is no universally accepted explanation for the massacre. In order to gain some lasting impressions from the tragedy, visitors to the ruins today are exhorted in both French and English: Souviens Toi--Remember!
The narrative, In a Ruined State, gives a full description of
what happened on the 10th June 1944 at Oradour and reviews all the
current explanations offered by different authors for the attack on the
village. In addition there are over 200 photographs in the Picture
Gallery and much supporting information in the
Appendices, including advice on how to get there and places to stay
during a visit. If short of time, read the Summary and look at the Recommended viewing list, but for a
fuller understanding, it is recommended to read all of,
In a Ruined
State. Additionally, the Appendices themselves are worth
reading, as they contain much relevant detail about the background to
the affair, biographical notes and details of what happened afterwards to those
involved. |
|
|
Contact the author Michael Williams at ... michael@oradour.info |
|
Note 1: In the
literature, Oradour-sur-Glane is often spelled as, Oradour sur Glane (without
the hyphens) and is frequently referred to simply as, Oradour, see
the Oradours of France. Oradour-sur-Glane is
pronounced as: "Oradoor-sur-Glarn". Note 2: The 10th of June 1944 was also the date for other war-crime killings by the Waffen-SS in France and elsewhere during WWII, see the 10th of June as a date in WWII history. Note 3: There is an annual ceremony in Oradour-sur-Glane to mark the anniversary of the massacre, see 10th June commemoration ceremony. Note 4: All spelling and date formatting on this website follows the British English conventions, see Dates, commonly misspelled words & accents. Note 5: The Favicon for this website, which should be displayed in the address bar of your web browser, shows a cross of Lorraine superimposed on a standard French flag. Note 6: This website includes information about a range of persons, places and organisations involved in the events at Oradour-sur-Glane, including: a) French survivors who were present on the 10th of June 1944 and listed under Dramatis Personae including, Robert Hébras, Mathieu Borie, Clément Broussaudir, Jean-Marcel Darthout, Yvon Roby, Hubert Desourteaux, Jacques Desourteaux, Jean Desourteaux, Roger Godfrin, the Pinède children, Pierre-Henri Poutaraud, and Marguerite Rouffanche. b) German forces personnel involved, were those of the members of the Der Führer Regiment of the 2nd SS-Panzer Division, Das Reich and include: Georg René Boos, Heinz Barth, Adolf Diekmann, Karl Gerlach, Otto Kahn, Helmut Kämpfe, Heinrich Lammerding, Johannes Seefried, Sylvester Stadler, Otto Weidinger and Heinz Werner. c) Organisational information, such as, The Order of Battle of Das Reich in June 1944 is shown, as is an example of the SS rank structure and notes on Hugo Sperrle, the Commander-in-Chief West of the German armed forces and whose orders were used to justify the attack. In addition there are notes on language and terms used during the Nazi period. d) As well as the various personnel listed above, there are basic notes on: Len Cotton, an RAF man shot down over France and sheltered in Oradour and Georges Guingouin a commander of the French Resistance whose capture of Helmut Kämpfe triggered the attack. Note 7: All unvisited links are shown in Blue and change colour to Purple when visited. Note 8: Site optimised for a desktop PC with a 1280 x 1024 screen and the text size set to Medium in the View menu of Internet Explorer. Note 9: Please report any broken links, or errors of any kind to: michael@oradour.info Note 10: There are no cookies, or spyware of any kind at all on this website. |
© Michael Williams ... Friday 10th March 2000 ... this page was last updated on Thursday, 22 July 2021