Oradour-sur-Glane, France


On 10 June 1944, almost all of the inhabitants of French village Oradour-sur-Glane were brutally murdered by Nazi Waffen-SS soldiers. The men were taken to a barn where soldiers shot at their legs until they were unable to move. Then they doused them in petrol and set them alight. The women and children of the village were herded into the church, where the pews had been soaked in petrol. It, too, was set on fire, and those who tried to escape were shot at with machine guns. That night, the village was all but razed to the ground. A total of 642 people died in the massacre, 205 of which were children. There were few survivors.

At the end of the war, French president, General Charles de Gaulle, declared that Oradour-sur-Glane should never be rebuilt, but stand forever, frozen in time, as a memorial to the innocent civilians who died there. A reminder of one of the worst Nazi atrocities to take place in Western Europe.

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