Oradour sur Glane

[dwmcn]

I was born in 1940, in the US, and my mother had a Singer sewing machine like those I saw. I know that a bit of looting probably took place, but was nobody interested in taking the sewing machines? 

[Cendrillon]

[quote user="dwmcn"]I was born in 1940, in the US, and my mother had a Singer sewing machine like those I saw. I know that a bit of looting probably took place, but was nobody interested in taking the sewing machines? [/quote]

 

Probably the metal was distorted and buckled by the fires, any wooden parts would have been damaged or completely burnt and these old machines were very heavy so not easy to take.

[dwmcn]

I thought maybe they could convert them into Gatling guns. Vorsprung durch Technik.

[bixy]

I think the sewing machines were put there subsequently - there they sit perched on walls, clearly visible. Think about it. When the roofs and upper floors collapsed they would have been buried under tons of rubble. No, I'm quite sure that they and other artifacts were subsequently placed in the ruins to give an air of authenticity. Those who have yet to visit, when you do, see if you do not agree with me about a certain degree of "unnaturalness" about the place.

Patrick

[fieldwalker]

Bixy, if you research the subject, you will find the majority of answers to your own questions!

Look closely within the ruined shells and you'll see more than a few pans, bicycles, and the odd sewing machine. Most of the buildings have required some form of strengthening over the years, and this is evident from the large concrete frames which can be seen within the structures.In order for remedial work to be carried out to preserve the village, in many cases large amounts of rubble needed to be cleared before work could take place.

These buildings were torched in an attempt to destroy everything, and there is no better evidence of the ferocity of the effects of fire than the molten mass of metal that was once the church bell.

Many artifacts were in fact recovered, some of which can be seen on display in the cemetery. 

 

 

[bixy]

But what happened to the hundreds of thousands of tiles?

Patrick

[Hoddy]

I think Fieldwalker has already given an excellent answer to this. The ground would have had to be cleared in order for the strengthening work to be carried out. Most of the buildings would have fallen down by now if they'd just been left.

To say that the village should be preserved just as it was does not mean that it is just left to crumble. Obviously, as I said earlier, some conservation work has to be done. If it hadn't been, then no doubt the whole place would be overgrown by now. That's why I wouldn't mind paying an entrance fee.

Hoddy

[cowoman]

When we went I was amazed that the Brits hadnt got their scaffolding out to start renovation work.If it wasnt such a sad story,i am sure i would have seen some new roofs going on

 

[Kitty]

Presumably the message take home from Oradour is not in the detail of the buildings but the symbolism of the village?

 

[DerekJ]

[quote user="Cathy"]

Presumably the message take home from Oradour is not in the detail of the buildings but the symbolism of the village?

 

[/quote]

I would have thought that very true. If you go to somewhere like Dachau you will find that many of the building no longer exist (just the foundations) but the sense of desolation and pain is still all consuming.

[dwmcn]

Cows can have hooves and hoofs, but houses can only have roofs, not rooves.

 

[cowoman]

[quote user="dwmcn"]

Cows can have hooves and hoofs, but houses can only have roofs, not rooves.

 

[/quote]

thanks for that

[dwmcn]

I'm not really a pedant. I get enough of that on another forum. I was just moooooved to reply by your photograph.

[Wendy]

So the German soldiers were like 'Oh sorry, we didn't mean to kill all the women, children and babies in THIS town, but the OTHER town instead'...?

They did it because they were cold hearted and sadistic monsters.

[Kitty]

Different versions of the same event in history can be produced by different people.  However, according to many historians, the German soldiers were looking for a German officer, Sturmbannfuhrer Kampfe, who was being held hostage by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres (not Oradour-sur-Glane) at some point on 9th June 1944.  After the D-Day invasion, on 6th June 1944, there had been an order for the Resistance to step up their activities to slow the movement of German troops to Normandy.

Because, on 10th June, the Germans surrounded the wrong village, and naturally they could not find their fellow officer because he was elsewhere, the officer commanding one of the battalions of the 4th Waffen SS, Sturmbannfuhrer Adolf Diekmann, oversaw the massacre.  Apparently, he had no authority to do this.  He had been detailed by his regimental commander, Standartenfuhrer Stadler, to order the Mayor of Oradour to name 30 people as hostages until Sturmbannfuhrer Kampfe was released (pretty cruel in itself).  Had Diekmann not been killed himself, along with many of the battalion, days later in the Battle of Normandy, he would have been held to account.

This explanation is not an apology for what happened.  Far from it.  It demonstrates how evil and pointless war is, when desperate retreating troops can commit such an atrocity.  They killed anyone who accidentally found themselves in the village including, it is understood, some passing cyclists.  How can they have done it?  What was in their minds?  Afterwards, would the soldiers have felt any remorse?

It was a horrifying and unthinkable episode and we can only hope that the memorial will revolt enough of us all to prevent it from ever happening again.  Thank the French for enabling this memorial to stand.

[shawny]

You state, according to many historians.....I have read a few books over many years and I don't want to harp on about this but sorry, I really think that the best that anyone can say about why this atrocity happened is :

On that day

they killed a total of 642 men, women and children without giving

any reasons for their actions and to this day there is no

universally accepted explanation for the massacre.  

Author Michael Williams

http://www.oradour.info/index.htm

As for this sort of thing never happening again....sadly, it has happened since and many times over.

[Chris Head]

Afterwards, would the soldiers have felt any remorse?

The 'soldiers' who pulled the trigger wouldn't have had very much choice, had they countermanded direct orders in the field they would have got the good news themselves, they cannot be blamed any more so can the monkey who dances to the organ grinder...if he doesn't dance he's not going to be around long either. It's the politicians who need to be held accountable, then as now. It happened and it's finished.

[Wendy]

The monkey dances for his food and nothing else.

No-one held a gun to the heads of the men who shot those babies and children being pushed through the church windows by their mothers in the hope of escape. I myself would take a bullet rather commit such acts of barbarity against innocent children and babes. I could not live with myself otherwise...the thing is those men lived with their actions for many years afterwards, without any regret.

You talk about politicians being held accountable? the french have built a memorial to that traitor and Nazi sympathiser, Petain, in his home town! And I have used a small 'f' to spell 'french' here in this context for good reason. That man sold his country and it's people out; he should have been executed. To think that many here think he should be commemorated...![+o(]

[shawny]

I don't want to get in to a dispute here but have you ever been in the position of shooting innocents ?  Of course the answer I would think is "No" As for no gun being put to their heads, I think we know that is most probably the case, even if not literally.

I believe it is hard to know what anyone would do, when the penalty of refusal to act as ordered, is a shot in the head yourself, or death by some means. Now add on that you have a dearly beloved parents, maybe even wonderful Grandparents and a few children of your own at home in Germany, waiting for your return ?

As none of us have probably ever been in this same position, I guess we can all say we would rather be shot than do this and when the reality of the moment comes along, what would we really do ? Truth is, we can stamp our feet and deny we would never, ever, do such a barabarous act and I would hazard a guess that some time back, many of those same men who committed those evil deeds, might well have said the same thing.

Wars are detestable times and terrible atrocities happen, whether we would be brave enough to be killed for our principles, knowing our children, our Wives and our Grandparents will not be seen again, well that is probably the hardest question to answer, that one may ever be asked.

[Sunday Driver]

Nothing changes......

Charlie Company landed following a short artillery and helicopter gunship preparation. The soldiers found no enemy fighters in the village on the morning of March 16. Many suspected there were NLF troops in the village, hiding underground in the homes of their elderly parents or their wives. The U.S. soldiers, one platoon of which was led by Second Lieutenant William Calley, went in shooting at "suspected enemy position". After the first civilians were killed and wounded by the indiscriminate fire, the soldiers soon began attacking anything that moved, humans and animals alike, with firearms, grenades and bayonets. The scale of the massacre only spiraled as it progressed, the brutality increasing with each killing. 

BBC News described the scene:

"Soldiers went berserk, gunning down unarmed men, women, children and babies. Families which huddled together for safety in huts or bunkers were shown no mercy. Those who emerged with hands held high were murdered. ... Elsewhere in the village, other atrocities were in progress. Women were gang raped; Vietnamese who had bowed to greet the Americans were beaten with fists and tortured, clubbed with rifle butts and stabbed with bayonets. Some victims were mutilated with the signature "C Company" carved into the chest. By late morning word had got back to higher authorities and a cease-fire was ordered. My Lai was in a state of carnage. Bodies were strewn through the village."

Dozens of people were herded into an irrigation ditch and other locations and killed with automatic weapons. A large group of about 70 to 80 villagers, rounded up by the 1st Platoon in the center of the village, were killed personally by Calley and by soldiers he had ordered to fire. Calley also shot two other large groups of civilians with a weapon taken from a soldier who had refused to do any further killing.

Members of the 2nd Platoon killed at least 60-70 Vietnamese men, women, and children, as they swept through the northern half of My Lai 4 and through Binh Tay, a small subhamlet about 400 meters north of My Lai 4.

After the initial "sweeps" by the 1st and the 2nd Platoons, the 3rd Platoon was dispatched to deal with any "remaining resistance". They immediately began killing every still-living human and animal they could find, including shooting the Vietnamese who emerged from their hiding places, and finishing off the wounded found moaning in the heaps of bodies. The 3rd Platoon also rounded up and killed a group of 7 to 12 women and children.

Since Charlie Company had encountered no enemy opposition, 4th Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiement, was moved into its landing zone between and attacked the subhamlet of My Khe 4, killing as many as 90 people. U.S. forces lost one man killed and seven wounded from mines and booby traps. During the next two days, both battalions were involved in additional burning and destruction of dwellings, and in the mistreatment of Vietnamese detainees.

Most of the soldiers had not participated in the crimes, but neither did they protest or complain to their superiors.

None of these All American Boys are likely to have been under threat of immediate shooting by their superiors, nor did they have family at home who would be thrown into concentration camps if they refused to obey.  It's just the way of Man......

 

 

[raindog]

That makes sobering reading SD.......

[shawny]

[quote] Most of the soldiers had not participated in the crimes, but neither did they protest or complain to their superiors.

None of these All American Boys are likely to have been under threat

of immediate shooting by their superiors, nor did they have family at

home who would be thrown into concentration camps if they refused to

obey.  It's just the way of Man......[/quote]

I think it may be futile to judge both events against each other, suffice to say the threats to the German soldiers in World War 2 to obey such vile things, were probably far different to the Americans in Vietnam. In your post you mention most American soldiers not participating.  In the case of Oradour, I do not think that to be the case, if so, perhaps we would have records to tell us that most German soldiers never took part in the atrocity. I do believe that the two cases and indeed the wars themselves, were quite different.

 

[Kitty]

They both show that war is futile.  And to think that Britain has been at war every single year that Tony Blair was Prime Minister.  Shocking.

[Ron Avery]

Different versions of the same event in history can be produced by different people.   One French historian has been jailed for publishing his account which questions the "official version" of the massacre, His account and that of others, questions how the only survivor a young girl, who told of the massacre,  could have escaped from the church by climbing up a wall to get through a window 3 metres above the ground with the leg injuries that she had.  His account like the German account, suggested that the massacre in the church  by the Germans story was politically expedient at the time and that the people in the church were actually killed by exploding munitions resulting from munitions stored in the church by the Communist resistance being set off by exploding munitions stored in nearby houses which had been set alight,  flying into the church.  The resulting explosions killed the people that had been put into the church whilst the village was searched for the hostage. The "German version of events is here http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v03/v03p--5_letters.html It makes interesting reading and in many people's opinion is a more likely account as to what occurred as the French version of events.  But neverrtheless a lot of people died that day in that town, how, we may never know, but its worth reading the other side of the story.

[Scooby]

An interesting version until I read the following:

The SS men may have been many things, but they were not liars or

criminals. and they had a "code of honor" to live up to. In contrast

the partisans in France and elsewhere, were often recruited from the

criminal underworld or the indigenous communist movement and carried

out a campaign of unscrupulous terrorism that defies any moral

standards whatsoever!

Given what we know (definitively) about the actions of the SS elsewhere, and their skills at propoganda (see Terezin) - and the anti-semitic / holocaust denial preface to the above article,  I somehow doubt the validity of this account.