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'Among the German
crimes of the Second World War, the massacre of 642 women,
children and men of Oradour-sur-Glane by SS soldiers on 10 June
1944 is one of the most notorious. On that Saturday afternoon,
four days after the Allied landings in Normandy, SS troops
encircled the town of Oradour in the rolling farm country of the
Limousin and rounded up its inhabitants. In the marketplace they
divided the men from the women and children.
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off to barns nearby and shot. The soldiers locked the women and
children in the church, shot them, and set the building (and the
rest of the town) on fire. Those residents of Oradour who had been
away for the day, or had managed to escape the roundup, returned
to a blackened scene of horror, carnage and devastation.' |
| Sarah Farmer, Martyred Village 1999 |
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In 1946 the ruins of Oradour were taken over by
the French government and a decision was made to 'conserve the
ruins for the pious remembrance of future generations'. In April
2002, students from Year 8 and Year 9 visited the ruins. In this
section of the Humanities Website, you can read about their
experiences of that day. |
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A project produced in collaboration with
Sylvie Dukes, Emmanuel Renou and Carmen Tejedor.
Richard
Jones-Nerzic 05/02
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