Oradour-sur-Glane, WWII, and an Unjustified Massacre

Another weekend closer to Christmas break and Jordan and my vacation in Italy!  Can’t wait.

Friday night I stayed in and cooked dinner and watched some Gossip Girl.  AKA my newest obsession, especially because Jessi (friend from HWS) introduced me to a new website to watch American TV shows…this one doesn’t have any limits and doesn’t freeze up unlike the site I was using!  It’s a great time-killer and I am often bored so it’s perfect!

Saturday morning I went with some friends to another town called Ouradour-sur-Glane.  During WWII the Nazis massacred 642 people…and they weren’t even Jewish (not that it makes it any better or worse) AND this was in a town in France that wasn’t even occupied by the Nazis.  It was a free zone.  And after all of these people were shot, the town and all of the human remains were burned making mourning impossible.  The bodies couldn’t even be identified.  The worse of this whole thing was that there wasn’t even a good reason that all of these people were killed...they weren’t Jewish, gypsies, or whoever else they prosecuted…just everyday people.  Here are some pictures.  They are touching and this experience weight very heavy of my soul.

This says: 642 inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane, of which 197 were male, 240 were women, and 205were children were savagly massacred by the Nazis, the village was set on fire and completely destroyed.

This tells people to remember these people, say a prayer for them and their families.  It also says may they rest if peace because they are living in eternity.

Self explanatory.

Remnants of bikes.

Remnants of a burned car.

This says "On this site, the population gathered."  The Nazis went from house to house and gathered all of the people in this space.  After this, the men wer sent to several different places while the women and children were sent to the church.  All of the men were shot simultaneously in the different locations.  The soldiers then went to the church and killed all of the women and children by shooting them and throwign grenades.   After everyone was shot, the bodies and town was burned.

The church

Taking a step back to look at the city.

I can’t even put into words how I felt when walking through this.  It was unreal.  In America, we don’t have things like this, and what schools teach is the watered-down version of history; it always teaches students that “America is the hero” and we always “saved the day.”  Students will never fully understand history unless they take courses in college or educate themselves by means other than text books. 

On a brighter note, we then stomached some lunch and walked around a Christmas market.  It was cute but nothing really caught my eye besides the chocolate shops.  I ended up buying a small raspberry jam just because I wanted to try it.  It was probably over priced but it’s ok, I will enjoy my over-priced raspberry jam!