Horror in France

On the morning of 10 June 1944, the residents of Oradour-sur-Glane were going about their lives as normally as was possible in occupied France: cooking, washing, shopping, playing. Little did they know that they were about to become the victims of one of the most infamous massacres of the Second World War.

- ROBERT PIKE

The clouds had gathered over Oradour- sur-Glane on the morning of 10 June 1944, and rain threatened. At la Grange de Boeil, a hamlet nearby, Denise Bardet rose in the farmhouse she shared with her younger brother Camille and their mother Louise, a widow. It was a Saturday, and

Denise’s 24th birthday. She would be spending it teaching at Oradour’s girls’ school but planned to pedal the short journey home for a brief celebratory lunch with her mother. In the centre of the village, another resident named Odette Bouillière was sorting through what had been brought into the local post office. Odette lived in the upstairs flat overlooking Oradour’s own small tram station. Her mother was staying with her for the weekend, as was her 12-year-old nephew, Robert.

By mid-morning, the early summer warmth had burnt away the rainclouds. Weekend visitors from the nearby city of Limoges had arrived by tram, and as was the norm, everybody settled down for the customary long lunch. Minds turned to what the afternoon might hold.

The people at their tables in the lower part of the village, near the river, were the first to hear a low rumble coming from the direction of Limoges and St-Victurnien. Villagers went into the street to watch as a procession of German vehicles carrying around a hundred men crossed the bridge spanning the river Glane. As they passed, the soldiers surveyed the shops and houses along Oradour’s main street. Shutters closed while shopkeepers and curious onlookers gazed on in a mix of confusion, fear and curiosity at the strange convoy which wound its way uphill, leaving the lower village with its market hall and church behind it. Robert Hébras, who worked in Limoges and was used to seeing Germans every day, reassured his friends that this would be no more than an identity check. Many others, however, had not seen a German soldier since the beginning of the occupation.