Wanderings: Ouradour sur Glane

March 16, 2019

Ouradour sur Glane was a small town in central France. On June 10th 1944, a few days after the allied landing in Normandy, some SS troops in the Limoges area made the decision to make an example of a town to discourage resistance activity (1).

On the afternoon of that day, SS troops surrounded the village and swept everyone out of their houses and into the central part of town. The women and children were separated from the men and forced into the church.

The men were told their homes would be searched for weapons while were gathered in small groups around town. Upon a prearranged signal being given, the men were shot to death. The Nazi SS troops then set the church on fire and shot anyone trying to escape from the burning structure.

The Nazi troops then set the town ablaze. The whole Massacre was over in just a few hours. The French never rebuilt the town, the remnants of which are now a memorial.

I remember first hearing about Ouradour when I saw the documentary "The World at War" on PBS when I was a kid (2). The images somehow were filed in my brain as a town caught in the crossfire of war, with the town fought over by competing armies. Why else would the town itself have been physically destroyed?

When I had recently read a few books on the topic, I had envisioned some angry troops destroying the town to take revenge for a comrade killed by the resistance in the area. Visiting the site made me realize that the destruction of the town and its unarmed civilian inhabitants was deliberately planned by the commanding officer in the region to sow terror in the population.

My visit to the memorial town begin under grey skies. As I lingered the sun eventually came out came out. While there were a few other visitors, all was quiet as the visitors considered the events and paid their respects quietly.

The memorial is difficult to access by public transit, so I rented a car at Limoges to get to the site and then drove on to Paris (3) (4).

(1) The SS "das Fuhrer" division had recently transferred from the Russian front where little distinction was often made between civilians and combatants.

(2) The series was produced in 1974, so I was probably about 11 years old.

(3) I encountered a yellow vest (a) protest near the highway on-ramp. They seemed annoyed that I did not take their proffered flyer.

(a) Drivers in France are required to have yellow vests in their cars in case of a road-side breakdown. People protesting a proposed carbon/auto fuel tax donned the yellow vests, after which their protest movement has been named.

(4) I had had no fixed plan for the evening but I found last minute deal on a hotel in the latin quarter of Paris. When I arrived, the man at reception said they only had the "duplex room" left. This room had an entry and bathroom on the third floor while the bedroom was up a very narrow staircase on the fourth floor (a). It was quite charming.

(a) The furniture and mattress in the bedroom must have come in the window. They never would have made it up the narrow stairs.