Oradour sur glane

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Go_buddy_go_

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Don’t know of anyone else has watched this … I recall last month Just smiffy in his run to the sun travelogue mentioning Oradour sur Glane … I’ve just watched a documentary on sky on PBS America telling the story through the eyes and voice of one of the only 6 survivors… what a sobering and heartbreaking story… well worth a watch if you can
 
We like many motorhomers have been there

It's a VERY sobering place even school trips were quiet and respectful there are many places where you look and see the bullet holes in the walls and the Church where the Gestapo murdered the women and children

IF you haven't visited you MUST the documentaries don't convey half of the place there's the feeling and the silence very few bird calls in there you can FEEL the history
 
I went there in November 2016 on an overcast day. Only saw one other couple there, it was silent and really weird with no birds flying around. My wife would not go in the church because of what happened in there. I shed a tear on more than one occasionwhile there and even now looking back on my photos from there it sends a shiver down my back. As humans we can be so kind but also so cruel.

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If you are ever near you must visit. It is very humbling and emotional. As people have said no sound, birds and animals are no where to be seen. The place has a natural silence about it,as people arrive they initially speak then fall into silence. Not the easiest place to see but at the same time not to be missed it clearly demonstrates how awful humans can be
 
One of the worst things is that the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich had been brought up to strength by a number of recruits from Alsace Lorraine which had been part of Germany up to 1918. There were quite a few French refugees from Alsace who had taken shelter in Oradour after the Germans invaded in 1940. Those refugees were amongst the victims and, in the subsequent trials, some 14 members of the Der Fuehrer Regiment of Das Reich who came from Alsace were amongst the defendants. The trial took place in 1953 but, within a short time, following pressure from the, now, French Département of Alsace, amnestys were issued. Only one man served much jail time for his part, an Alsatian who had volunteered for the SS. The others had claimed to have been conscripted.

On the same day as the massacre some 50 miles south east of Oradour in the village of Salon la Tour, British SOE agent Violette Szabo was captured also by men of Das Reich

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A visit to Orador Sur Glane is the most moving place I have ever visited. To add a lighter note, we met a couple of full timers years after our visit. He was a divorced Brit who pulled up sticks and went travelling. He called into the Tourist Office at Orador and spoke to the young lady there. They have been together ever since!!

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One of the few “visitor attractions” where most visitors leaving are silent for several minutes. If you visit, and aren’t affected by the scene and the eerie atmosphere, than you can have no feelings.

Everyone that can should visit at least once.
 
We've still to watch programme that but even though we've had the box set for years we did start watching The World at War recently on the Yesterday channel and that opens with scenes from Oradour-sur-Glane. It continued with the rise of Nazi Germany and though we've seen many documentaries and films on the subject it is so easy to see how Hitler managed to take control of a country in limbo after WW1.

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Bailey58 said:
We've still to watch programme that but even though we've had the box set for years we did start watching The World at War recently on the Yesterday channel and that opens with scenes from Oradour-sur-Glane. It continued with the rise of Nazi Germany and though we've seen many documentaries and films on the subject it is so easy to see how Hitler managed to take control of a country in limbo after WW1.

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There has also been a couple of programmes recently about the SS , interviewing men and women who had been in it. Although we know now how wrong it was it's also easy to see how at that time they were all carried away by the propaganda.
 
Stopped with the kids whilst driving on the way down to Spain a few years ago both had been to France and Belgium with schools to visit graves and battlefields and when I suggested it, they said they wanted to see it. We walked round in complete silence taking the horror onboard and I observed my son and daughter in a different way than the 12 and 14 year olds I saw at home. It was about 20 years ago but remains vivid in my memory.
 
maison said:
One of the few “visitor attractions” where most visitors leaving are silent for several minutes. If you visit, and aren’t affected by the scene and the eerie atmosphere, than you can have no feelings.

Everyone that can should visit at least once.
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So true about the silence. At Auschwitz, by the time you have walked back from Birkenau to the car park that feeling has gone sadly. Then comes the shop!

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It really troubled me for days afterwards. Particularly the school photographs, and the knowledge that it had happened in my lifetime, when I myself had similar school photographs. We also noted the lack of bird life. I also noted that there were cars in the car park from many European nations, bar one. I can see why.
 
Dorwyn said:
It really troubled me for days afterwards. Particularly the school photographs, and the knowledge that it had happened in my lifetime, when I myself had similar school photographs. We also noted the lack of bird life. I also noted that there were cars in the car park from many European nations, bar one. I can see why.
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Lots of German school kids do a trip there .
 
A place that once visited you never forget, Laurence Oliviers' opening words of the epic series 'The World at War' always brings a tear to my eye.

'Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, a community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead.'
 
Very moving place to visit I agree. The no birds thing though,I've also seen that said about extermination camps in Europe. It's an urban myth. The day I visited Oradour, a large green lizard ran up the street in front of me and a Jay swooped down and nailed it.
 
chaser said:
There has also been a couple of programmes recently about the SS , interviewing men and women who had been in it. Although we know now how wrong it was it's also easy to see how at that time they were all carried away by the propaganda.
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Course they were . Sad thing is nothing changes , its amazing how a few gifted orators in politics can steer millions.

Brexit a good example .

Trumps re election another one .

If you convince enough people that " they " are the enemy whether it be another race, another sexual orientation, another religion its amazing how you can manipulate a people.

Dare I say it but covid was another.... look back now at what they had people doing back in 2020 and you'd think it was crazy.


And it could happen again that's the sad part
 
cyberyacht said:
I watched a programme a week or two back about Hitler's rise to power between 1933 and 1938. The parallels to Putin are a bit scary.
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Trumps going that way too. I watched an clip of an interview with him yesterday...the deportations he has planned. Not just illegals but if illegal parents have legal children they get deported too ....allegedly to not split the family unit.

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