The futility of war - Oradour-sur-Glane
Apr 9–10 in France ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C
Having lounged about like lizards for several days, we decided to venture out to the village of Oradour-sur Glane. We began with coffee, of course, in a beautiful street lined with blossom trees, where the houses and shops were alot more modern than many French villages - this, we learn later is 'the new village'.
The story of Oradour-sur-Gane is incredibly sad. Four days after the Normandy landing in June 1944, The Waffen and Panzer SS Divisions headed west, providing fanatical and stubborn resistance to the Allied advance.
For no known reason, apart from them being the SS, the Das Reich SS Division, heading for Normandy, arrived in the peaceful village of Oradore-sur-Glane at 2 pm on 10 June. There, in three hours, they executed 643 men, women and children by machine gun fire. The women and children were herded into the church and suffocated/burnt to death. The youngest was eight days old. The men were shot, then their bodies burnt. The buildings were also set to the flames. Only one women escaped with her life, by jumping from a window of the church.
The signs on shop doorways, and the significant number of burnt out wrecks of large old cars and trucks indicated that this was a very prosperous village in the day, and a year later, when General Charles de Gaulle visited, he decreed the ruined village should be preserved in order to bear witness for the rest of mankind to the consequences of the barbarity of war.
It was a very moving and reflective visit, given the current precarious state of world peace.
On Friday there was some excitement as Roger spotted a fox in the neighbouring paddock. It was a very large fox too, and it was out in the middle of the day so the binoculars came out and much observing took place.
Later in the afternoon we took the dogs over to the lake again, in Saint Germain les belles and we managed two and three laps respectively, Roger declaring the girls needed some stick retrieval in le lac, while I power walked the final lap. Another glorious night needed an aperol spritz on the deck to celebrate and then we shared a delicious pizza, while the wet dogs just waited and waited..... patiently. All good things in France take time and food and drinks is no exception. We sat catching up on emails with the restaurant wifi for at least 40 minutes, before finally calling one of the waitresses over to ask for a drink!Read more