Just came across this by accident and I know there are a few military history buffs on here, so I though I would let you know. In 1944 the Waffen-SS attacked and wiped out the population of the small village, killing 642 men women and children. It remains today as a ruin and memorial to the villagers.

http://www.oradour.info/

The same sort that massacred those Americans in 1944, after they tied their hands behind their backs and shot them. An american general put out an order for all ss uniformed personel to be shot on sight. Rot in hell you ss bastards. A disgrace to your uniform and german military history.

I really do not see the signal.

I went there several years back. I was staying fairly near another Oradour in the same region that was a hotbed of French resistance and it is thought the SS got their Oradour's mixed up and massacred the wrong village (if there ever could be the 'right' village).

It is well worth a visit, its not far from Limoges and Ryan Air fly there from Stansted otherwise its a drive of 7 hours or so.

well done paul,my mate alan taylor has actuly been to the village and took vidio and still photos of the place.he was telling me how errie the village is with no bird song etc.he has posted his pictures on his web site forgetmenotwargraves worth looking at.

if you dont like europe why live so close.
ditch the pound bring on the euro.

Last edited at 10:10am on 29/07/10 by Brian Dixon

Indeed, as soon as I saw the title of this thread I thought of our Alan. I remember him telling us about it just after his visit.

The Dover War Memorial Project
www.doverwarmemorialproject.org.uk

I've been to Oradour-sur-Glane too. Such a sad place. God bless all those poor people who were murdered there.

Absolutely terrible, in fact worse than horrific. You can understand why peoples feeling of hatred towards the Germans lasted a long time after the war ended.

Time heals most things, although you can fully understand the sentiments of our old folk that had to actually endure the suffering and hardship.

I suppose the modern take on this would be that it was nothing to do with the Germans, it was all down to those nasty Nazis. ( apparently they must have been a different breed? )

My grandmother who passed away during the early seventies could never forgive them since she lost her husband in the bombing of the Woolwich Arsenal. It always greatly amused me that if there was ever a football match on the TV between Germany and anybody else, everytime a German had the ball and an opposition player approached, this little frail old lady would suddenly come to life and start shouting " KICK HIM, KICK HIM "!

All very Non-PC by todays standards and as Damian Green would probably say most " un-British ".

Thankfully the world has moved on.

let us not forget that a lot of the ss units were from eastern europe, the ukraine had a large presence there and in the con centration camps.

over the last decade or so all the ex war criminals rounded up have been non german.

Oradour-sur-Glane will long live in infamy; I first got to know of it in the 70s. It was the subject of the very opening of the first episode of the superlative 'World At War', narrated by the late Laurence Olivier. It moved me then, and its story has remained with me since; it is the salutory lesson we must all learn of man's inhumanity to man.

Requiescant in pace.

True friends stab you in the front.

Not forgetting there were also Dutch SS Officers.