Oradour-sur-Glane is a small town
in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region of France. On 10th June 1944 642 men, women
and children, virtually the entire population of the town, were brutally murdered by a German Waffen
SS Panzer Division. Entering the remains of the town
the first thing I noticed was a battered metal sigh propped up against the trunk of a
tree bearing the word SILENCE. A short
walk on we passed the fairground where, on that fateful day, the occupants of
the town were rounded up before they were massacred and burnt. The ruined
buildings still look raw even after seventy years. The warm autumn colours did nothing to
soften the harsh reality. Today there is
a new town nearby, but the original has been maintained as a permanent
memorial and museum - a testimony to the cruelty humans can inflict on each other.
