Oradour-Sur-Glane, France: Nazi Massacre June 10, 1944, 75th Anniv.

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Last edited Tue Jun 11, 2019, 01:41 AM - Edit history (2)

Today (June 10) marks the 75th anniversary of the massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane (Haute-Vienne), in which 642 civilians were slaughtered by the Nazis in 1944. The town, which is near Limoges, was once a thriving community - with many shops, a bakery, a garage, and a cafe. There was even a school, a tram to Limoges, and two hotels. Yet, on June 10 1944, German SS entered the town, and shot and killed every man they could find.

The women and children were rounded up into the local church, which was set alight; and the town was looted. In response, then-President General Charles de Gaulle ordered that the town remain in ruins, as a permanent memorial to the atrocities, and the suffering of the people.https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/France-marks-75-years-since-Oradour-sur-Glane-tragedy-on-June-10-1944



Oradour-sur-Glane remains in ruins as a symbol of respect.

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1. June 2019 video of Robert Hebras, age 93, the last survivor of Oradour.

He barely escaped the massacre at age 19.

- June 2019, Video of the town and interview with Robert Hebras, *in French/en francais.



Wiki. Robert Hébras, Jean-Marcel Darthout, Mathieu Borie, Clément Broussaudier, Yvon Roby and Pierre-Henri Poutaraud were the only six of 186 male civilians who survived the execution with machine guns. These six stayed – partly covered beneath the dead bodies of their friends – in the barn and pretended to be dead. The SS soldiers went on the pile of corpses and shot everyone who was still moving. They set the barn on fire 15 minutes after the execution to cover up the massacre. Poutaraud fled out of the fire too soon and was murdered by a guard positioned near the cemetery.

Because of the fear for their lives the five remaining men waited so long under the burning corpses that they themselves caught fire. Robert Hébras: "My left arm and my hair had already burned. It was a terrible pain; therefore I had to get out of the barn.” Three of five men who escaped out of the burning village were seriously injured by the hail of bullets, including Hébras. One bullet remained stuck in his leg, another touched his wrist.

Half the Hébras family - his mother Marie, his nine-year-old sister Denise, and his 22-year-old sister Georgette - died in the extermination at Oradour. His father only survived by chance as he happened to be at a farm outside Oradour, as did his sister Leni, who had married and moved away. - After 10 June 1944, Robert Hébras participated actively in the resistance against Nazism; in the last year of the war he also fought for the French Resistance. In 1983, he took part in the lawsuit against one of the assassins of Oradour – Heinz Barth – as a witness in the former GDR. In 2003 a documentary movie was published, titled Encounter with Robert Hébras - On the trail of extinguished life... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H%C3%A9bras