Oradour-sur-Glane

1. Lead

Oradour-sur-Glane was a small village in the Haute-Vienne department of central France, about 22 kilometres north-west of Limoges. On 10 June 1944, four days after the Allied landings in Normandy, soldiers of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich entered the village, gathered its inhabitants, and killed 643 people — men, women and children — and then set fire to the village and destroyed it. The victims included the whole population that was present that day: families, schoolchildren, the village priest, and visitors who happened to be in Oradour that Saturday afternoon. After the war, the French government, on the orders of General Charles de Gaulle, decided that the ruined village would not be rebuilt, but would be preserved as it was left on 10 June 1944, as a memorial to the victims and as a warning against war crimes. A new village was built nearby, and the ruins stand today, quiet and empty, as one of the most visited memorial sites in France.

The number of victims, 643, is the figure given by the memorial and by the French authorities, and it is the figure used in this article. The names of the victims are known, and they are listed at the memorial: 190 men, 245 women and 207 children, with one person unidentified in some lists, which is why some sources give 642. The difference of one reflects the difficulty of identifying every victim in the destruction, not a dispute about the scale of the crime. This article does not describe the violence in detail. It tells what happened, who the victims were, how the village is remembered, and what justice was done, in the belief that the facts, stated plainly and respectfully, are enough.

Oradour is remembered in France as a symbol of the suffering of civilians in the Second World War, and as a reminder that war crimes were committed not only in the great camps and battlefields but in ordinary villages, on ordinary days. The preserved ruins, the Centre de la Mémoire, and the annual commemorations on 10 June keep that memory alive, and they are the subject of this article.

2. Key Facts

What	Massacre of civilians and destruction of a French village by the SS on 10 June 1944
Where	Oradour-sur-Glane, Haute-Vienne, about 22 km north-west of Limoges, central France
When	Saturday 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day (6 June 1944)
Victims	643 people killed, according to the memorial and French authorities: 190 men, 245 women, 207 children (some lists give 642, with one victim unidentified)
Perpetrators	Soldiers of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich, under the command of Adolf Diekmann in the village that day
What happened	Villagers were gathered in the village square; men were taken to barns and other buildings, women and children to the church; all were killed and the village was set on fire
Survivors	Very few: among them Marguerite Rouffanche, who survived in the church, and a small number of men who escaped
After the war	The ruined village was preserved by order of General de Gaulle; a new village was built nearby
Trial	Bordeaux trial, 1953: 21 defendants, mostly Alsatians conscripted into the SS; sentences varied, and an amnesty in 1953 freed most of them
Today	The ruins are preserved as a memorial; the Centre de la Mémoire opened in 1999; annual commemoration on 10 June

3. Background

Oradour-sur-Glane was, before 10 June 1944, an ordinary village in the Limousin, a rural region of central France. It had about 330 inhabitants in the village itself, with more people living in the surrounding farms and hamlets, and its life was the life of a farming village: a church, a school, shops, a post office, a railway station, and the market on Saturdays. The village was not a centre of resistance, and it was not a military target. That ordinariness is part of why Oradour is remembered: the people who died there were not soldiers, and they were not, in the main, members of the Resistance, but ordinary families going about an ordinary Saturday.

France in June 1944

In June 1944, France had been occupied by Germany for four years, and the Resistance was active across the country, especially in the Limousin, where the maquis — the rural Resistance — operated in the forests and hills. On 6 June 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy, and the Resistance was ordered to rise, to cut railways, to ambush German columns, and to help the Allied advance. The German response was harsh: the SS Panzer Division Das Reich, which was moving north from the south of France to Normandy, was ordered to deal with the Resistance on its way, and it committed a series of killings and reprisals in the Limousin, of which Oradour was the largest. The division had already been involved in the killing of civilians at Tulle on 9 June 1944, the day before Oradour, when 99 men were hanged in the town.

The Resistance in the Limousin was strong, because the forests and hills gave cover, and because the local people, who knew the country, could hide the maquis and feed them. The Germans, who were moving north in a hurry, saw the Resistance as a threat to their march, and they were ordered to deal with it ruthlessly, a fact that is part of the context of Oradour, though it does not explain why this village was chosen.

The Das Reich division

The SS Panzer Division Das Reich was one of the main Waffen-SS divisions, and it had fought on the Eastern Front, where it had taken part in killings of civilians and prisoners. Its commander in France in June 1944 was Heinz Lammerding, and the officer who commanded the troops in Oradour on 10 June was Adolf Diekmann, a battalion commander. The division was moving north in a hurry, its route was being harassed by the Resistance, and its officers were under orders to act ruthlessly against civilians who were thought to be helping the Resistance. Those orders do not explain Oradour, and they do not excuse it, but they are the context in which the massacre happened, and they are part of the evidence that was presented at the trial in Bordeaux in 1953.

The division had also fought in the Soviet Union, where it had learned to treat civilians as enemies, and where it had taken part in killings that were later documented at Nuremberg. That experience, and the orders that the division received in France, are part of the evidence that historians use to understand why the soldiers in Oradour acted as they did, though they do not excuse their actions.

Why Oradour?

Historians have asked why Oradour was chosen, and the answer is not certain. The SS said after the war that they had come to Oradour looking for a German officer who was thought to be held prisoner there, and for weapons, but no German officer was found in Oradour, and no weapons of significance were found. Other historians have suggested that the village was chosen by mistake, or that it was chosen because it was on the division’s route, or because its inhabitants were thought to be sheltering members of the Resistance. What is certain is that the village was not a military target, that its people were not warned, and that the killing was not the result of a battle or a fight, but a deliberate act against civilians who had been gathered together and who could not defend themselves.

Some historians have also suggested that the SS may have confused Oradour-sur-Glane with another village, Oradour-sur-Vayres, where members of the Resistance were known to be active, and that the massacre was, in part, a mistake, though a mistake that does not lessen the crime, because the soldiers who carried it out knew that the people they were killing were civilians.

4. What Happened

The morning of 10 June 1944

On the morning of Saturday 10 June 1944, Oradour was a village going about its Saturday business. It was market day, and people from the surrounding farms had come into the village to shop, to go to the post office, and to take their children to school. The schoolchildren were in their classrooms, the shops were open, and the village was full of people who did not live there, as well as of its own inhabitants. In the early afternoon, SS soldiers arrived in trucks and on foot, surrounded the village, and ordered everyone to gather in the village square for an identity check. The villagers, who had no reason to expect what would follow, obeyed, and they waited in the square, with their children, while the soldiers searched the houses.

The schoolchildren were in their classrooms, and the teachers were with them, and the shops were open, and the post office was busy, and the village, on that Saturday, was fuller than usual, because people from the farms had come in for the market, a fact that explains why so many people, including visitors, were in Oradour that day.

The separation in the square

In the square, the SS separated the villagers into groups. The men were taken to barns and other buildings on the edge of the village, and the women and children were taken to the church. The separation was done calmly, and the villagers were told that it was a check, and that they would be released. The few people who tried to leave the village, or who hid in their houses, were found and brought back. By the late afternoon, the village was empty except for the soldiers and the people they had gathered, and the houses, the shops and the school stood open and silent.

The villagers were told to bring their identity papers, and they were searched, and their papers were checked, and the soldiers, who spoke to them calmly, gave them no reason to fear what would follow, a fact that is remembered by the survivors as one of the cruellest parts of the day, because the calm of the morning made the afternoon harder to believe.

The killing and the burning of the village

In the late afternoon, the SS killed the people they had gathered. The men in the barns and other buildings were killed, and the women and children in the church were killed when the church was set on fire. This article does not describe the manner of the killing in detail, out of respect for the victims and for their families. What matters for the historical record is that 643 people were killed that afternoon, that almost no one who was gathered in the square survived, and that the village was then set on fire, house by house, so that by the evening Oradour was burning, and by the next morning it was in ruins. The soldiers left the village that evening, and they took with them the livestock and the valuables they had looted from the houses.

By the evening, the village was burning, and the smoke could be seen from Limoges, and the soldiers, who had looted the houses, left the village in their trucks, taking with them the livestock and the valuables, and leaving behind a village that was, by the next morning, a ruin, with only the walls of the houses and the church still standing.

The survivors

Only a handful of people survived. Marguerite Rouffanche, a woman who was in the church, survived and gave testimony after the war about what had happened in the church, and her testimony is the main source for the events there. A small number of men survived by escaping from the barns, and a few other villagers survived because they were not in the village that day, or because they hid and were not found. The survivors were few, and their testimony, given at the trial in Bordeaux and in later interviews, is the reason the world knows what happened at Oradour, and it is the reason the names of the victims are known.

The survivors lived with the memory of that day for the rest of their lives, and many of them never returned to the ruined village, because the sight of the ruins was too painful, and they lived in the new village, or elsewhere, carrying the memory of the families they had lost, and of the village they had known.

The discovery

The ruins of Oradour were discovered by the Resistance and by the French authorities in the days after 10 June, and the news of the massacre spread through France and through the world. Photographs of the ruined village, of the burned church and of the destroyed houses, were published in newspapers, and Oradour became, within weeks, a symbol of German crimes in France. The bodies of the victims were buried in the village cemetery, and a first memorial was erected. The French government, which was still in exile in London and Algiers in June 1944, promised that Oradour would be remembered, and after the liberation of France, General de Gaulle ordered that the ruins be preserved.

The news of the massacre was reported in the French press, and in the press of the Allies, and it became, within weeks, a symbol of German crimes in France, and a reason for the French to resist, and for the Allies to fight on, because it showed, more clearly than any report, what the occupation meant for ordinary people.

5. The Site Today

The site of Oradour-sur-Glane today is the ruined village itself, preserved as it was left on 10 June 1944. A visitor enters through the Centre de la Mémoire, walks past the cemetery, and then walks through the streets of the ruined village, where the houses stand without roofs, the cars stand rusted in the streets, and the church stands burned and empty. The site is quiet, and visitors are asked to behave with respect, to speak quietly, and to remember that the ground they are walking on is the place where 643 people died.

Walking through the ruined village

The ruined village is laid out as it was in 1944: the main street, the square, the church, the school, the shops and the houses, all in ruins. The visitor can see the school, with its desks and its blackboard, the post office, the shops with their signs, and the houses with their furniture, their beds and their sewing machines, all burned and rusted. The church, which stands at the centre of the village, is the most visited part of the site, and it is also the most solemn: its walls are blackened, its roof is gone, and the names of the women and children who died there are remembered in the memorial. The village is not a reconstruction, and it is not a museum in the ordinary sense: it is the place itself, left as it was.

The visitor can also see the cars that were left in the streets, rusted and burned, and the sewing machines, the beds and the prams that were left in the houses, and those small objects, which are the most personal part of the site, are what visitors remember most, because they show that the village was a home, not only a place on a map.

The Centre de la Mémoire

The Centre de la Mémoire, which opened in 1999, stands at the entrance to the site, and it tells the history of Oradour, of the Limousin in the war, and of the massacre, through documents, photographs, films and the testimony of survivors. The centre is a modern building, and it is deliberately separate from the ruins, so that the visitor first learns the history, and then walks through the village itself. The centre also holds the list of the names of the victims, and it is the place where school groups and visitors can learn about the massacre in a way that is educational, respectful and based on evidence.

The centre also organises temporary exhibitions, and it holds conferences and workshops, and it is a place where historians, teachers and schoolchildren can learn about Oradour, and about the wider history of the Occupation, in a way that is based on documents and on testimony, rather than on myth or on rumour.

The cemetery and the new village

The cemetery of Oradour, which stands at the edge of the ruined village, holds the graves of the victims, and it is the place where the annual commemoration on 10 June is held. The new village of Oradour-sur-Glane, built after the war a short distance from the ruins, is a living village, with houses, shops, a school and a town hall, and its inhabitants are, in many cases, the descendants of the families who lived in the old village. The new village and the old ruins stand side by side, and the contrast between them — one living, one dead — is itself part of the memorial, and part of what a visitor remembers after leaving Oradour.

The new village has its own school, its own shops, and its own town hall, and its inhabitants, who are the descendants of the old village, live their lives in the shadow of the ruins, and they take part in the annual commemoration, and they welcome visitors, because they believe that the memory of Oradour must be kept alive.

6. Survivors and Testimony

Only a handful of people survived Oradour, and their testimony is the main source for what happened on 10 June 1944. The survivors were few, and they lived with the memory of the massacre for the rest of their lives, and many of them gave testimony at the trial in Bordeaux in 1953, and in later interviews, in the belief that the world should know what had happened. Their testimony is not easy to read, and it is not easy to hear, but it is the reason the names of the victims are known, and the reason Oradour is remembered as a place of named people, not only as a number.

Marguerite Rouffanche and the other survivors

Marguerite Rouffanche was the best-known survivor of Oradour, because she was in the church on 10 June 1944 and she survived, and because she gave testimony about what had happened there. Her testimony, given at the trial in Bordeaux and in later interviews, is the main source for the events in the church, and it is quoted in the Centre de la Mémoire and in the histories of Oradour. Other survivors included a small number of men who escaped from the barns, and a few villagers who were not in the village that day. Their testimony, taken together, gives a consistent account of the day: the gathering in the square, the separation, the killing, and the burning of the village.

Her testimony was given in court, and in interviews, and in the Centre de la Mémoire, and it is quoted in the histories of Oradour, because it is the only detailed account of what happened in the church, and because it is given by a woman who was there, and who survived, and who chose to speak.

The testimony of the families

The testimony of Oradour is not only the testimony of the survivors, but also the testimony of the families of the victims, who kept the memory of the village alive after the war. The families, many of whom lost their whole family on 10 June 1944, built the new village, preserved the ruins, and organised the annual commemoration, and they are the reason the memorial exists. Their testimony is recorded in the Centre de la Mémoire, in the archives of the village, and in the oral histories that have been collected since the war, and it shows that the memory of Oradour is a family memory as well as a national memory.

The families also keep the photographs, the letters and the documents of the people who died, and those papers, which are held in the Centre de la Mémoire and in the archives of the village, show that the victims were not only names on a wall, but people with lives, with families, and with hopes for the future.

Why testimony matters

Testimony matters at Oradour for a simple reason: without it, the massacre would be a number, 643, and a ruined village, and the people who died would be anonymous. With it, the victims have names, families, occupations and ages, and the visitor to Oradour can read those names on the memorial wall and in the Centre de la Mémoire, and can understand that the people who died were not abstractions but neighbours, schoolchildren, shopkeepers and farmers. That is the purpose of the memorial, and it is the reason the testimony of the survivors and of the families is preserved and taught.

Without testimony, the visitor to Oradour would see only ruins, and would not know who had lived there, or what had happened to them, and the memorial would be a place of stones, rather than a place of people, and that is why the Centre de la Mémoire puts the names and the testimony at the centre of its work.

7. Trials and Justice

The trial of the Oradour massacre was held in Bordeaux in 1953, nine years after the crime, and it was one of the most difficult trials in post-war France. Twenty-one men were tried, most of them Alsatians who had been conscripted into the SS, and the trial raised questions that France is still debating: who was responsible, how far conscription excused a soldier, and whether justice could be done for a crime of this scale. The trial did not satisfy everyone, and its outcome — an amnesty that freed most of the defendants — is still controversial, but it is part of the history of Oradour, and it must be told honestly.

The Bordeaux trial of 1953

At Bordeaux, 21 defendants were tried for the massacre. Fourteen of them were Alsatians, from the region of Alsace that Germany had annexed in 1940, who had been conscripted into the SS against their will, and the other seven were German SS volunteers. The prosecution argued that all of them had taken part in the killing, and that conscription did not excuse murder. The defence argued that the Alsatians had been forced into the SS, that they had been threatened with punishment if they disobeyed, and that they were themselves victims of the German occupation. The court convicted most of the defendants, and sentenced some to death and others to imprisonment, but the sentences were not carried out as imposed.

The trial lasted for weeks, and it was reported in the French press every day, and the court heard testimony from survivors, from soldiers, and from experts, and the verdict, when it came, was awaited across France, because the trial was seen as a test of whether justice could be done for Oradour.

The amnesty and its controversy

Shortly after the trial, the French parliament passed an amnesty law, in 1953, which freed the Alsatian defendants, on the grounds that they had been conscripted and that Alsace itself had suffered under German occupation. The amnesty was welcomed in Alsace, where the defendants were seen as victims, but it was bitterly resented in Oradour and in the Limousin, where the families of the victims saw it as a denial of justice. The controversy over the amnesty is still remembered in France, and it is taught in schools as an example of the difficulty of doing justice after a war, when the categories of victim and perpetrator overlap, and when a nation is trying to rebuild itself.

The amnesty law was passed by the French parliament, and it was supported by politicians who wanted to reconcile France and Alsace, and who believed that the Alsatian defendants, who had been conscripted, should not be punished as if they had volunteered, a view that was rejected by the families of Oradour, who saw the amnesty as a betrayal.

The men who were never tried

The senior officers responsible for Oradour were never tried for the massacre. Adolf Diekmann, who commanded the troops in the village, was killed in Normandy a few weeks after Oradour, in June 1944. Heinz Lammerding, the commander of the Das Reich division, was tried in absentia in Bordeaux and sentenced to death, but he was never extradited from Germany, and he died in West Germany in 1971 without serving his sentence. The fact that the senior officers were never brought to justice is part of the history of Oradour, and it is one reason the families of the victims have continued to call for justice, and to keep the memory of the massacre alive, long after the trial of 1953.

Lammerding lived in West Germany, where he ran a business, and where he was protected by the German authorities, who refused to extradite him, and his death in 1971, without trial, is remembered in Oradour as a failure of justice, and as a reason to keep the memory of the massacre alive.

8. Visiting Information

Oradour-sur-Glane is open to visitors, and it is one of the most visited memorial sites in France. The site is in the Haute-Vienne, about 22 kilometres north-west of Limoges, and it is reached by road from Limoges, which is the nearest large town, with a railway station and an airport. Visitors should allow at least half a day for the site, and they should remember that it is a memorial, not a tourist attraction, and that respectful behaviour is expected at all times.

The Centre de la Mémoire and the ruins

The visit begins at the Centre de la Mémoire, which is open every day except for some holidays, and which charges a modest admission. The centre tells the history of the massacre, and it is the place to start, because it gives the visitor the facts and the testimony that make the walk through the ruins meaningful. After the centre, the visitor walks through the ruined village, which is free to visit, and which is open during daylight hours. The walk through the village takes about an hour, and it is a walk in silence: visitors are asked to speak quietly, not to take photographs in a way that disturbs others, and not to climb on the ruins or to take anything from the site.

The walk through the ruins is also a walk through the history of the village, because the houses, the shops and the school are laid out as they were in 1944, and a visitor who follows the route can see, street by street, how the village lived, and how it died, on 10 June 1944.

Practical advice for visitors

Visitors should wear comfortable shoes, because the site is large and the ground is uneven, and they should bring water in summer, because there is little shade in the ruined village. The site is not suitable for very young children, and parents should consider whether their children are old enough to understand what they are seeing. Guided tours are available in French and in English, and they are recommended, because a guide can explain the history of the village and can answer questions. The village of Oradour-sur-Glane has a small number of hotels and restaurants, and Limoges, 22 kilometres away, has a wider choice of accommodation.

Visitors should also remember that the site is a cemetery as well as a memorial, and that the families of the victims still visit the cemetery, and still lay flowers on the graves, and that a visitor who behaves with respect is, in a small way, taking part in the commemoration of Oradour.

The cemetery and the annual commemoration

The cemetery, which is at the edge of the ruined village, is the place where the annual commemoration on 10 June is held, and visitors who come on that day will find a service, with speeches, with the reading of the names of the victims, and with the laying of wreaths. Visitors at other times of the year will find the cemetery quiet, and they are welcome to walk through it, to read the names on the graves, and to leave flowers. The cemetery is a place of remembrance for the families, and visitors should behave there as they would in any cemetery, with respect and with quiet.

The cemetery is also the place where the names of the victims are read aloud every year, and where the families gather, and where visitors can see, in the rows of graves, the scale of the massacre, and the fact that whole families, including children, are buried there together.

9. Commemoration and Education

Oradour is commemorated every year on 10 June, the anniversary of the massacre, and it is taught in French schools as part of the history of the Second World War. The commemoration is organised by the village, by the families of the victims, and by the French state, and it is attended by the President of the Republic or by a senior minister on important anniversaries, by the families, by schoolchildren, and by visitors from France and from other countries. The commemoration is simple: a service in the cemetery, the reading of the names of the victims, and a walk through the ruined village.

The annual commemoration on 10 June

The annual commemoration on 10 June is the most important event in the calendar of Oradour, and it is the day when the village remembers its dead. The service begins in the cemetery, where the names of the 643 victims are read aloud, and it continues with a walk through the ruined village, where wreaths are laid at the church and at the memorial. Schoolchildren from the Limousin and from other parts of France take part, and they read the names, lay flowers, and learn about the massacre from the survivors and from the families. The commemoration is broadcast on French television, and it is reported in the French press, so that the memory of Oradour is kept alive across France.

The commemoration is also attended by schoolchildren from across France, who read the names, lay flowers, and learn about the massacre, and who, when they return to their schools, tell their classmates what they have seen, so that the memory of Oradour is carried from one generation to the next.

Oradour in French schools

In French schools, Oradour is taught as part of the history of the Occupation and the Resistance, and school groups visit the site every year, as part of their history education. The Centre de la Mémoire provides teaching materials, including the testimony of survivors, the list of the names of the victims, and the history of the trial, and it organises workshops for schoolchildren, in which they learn about the massacre, about the Resistance, and about the importance of remembering war crimes. The aim of the teaching is not only to teach the facts, but to teach the values that Oradour represents: the dignity of the victims, the importance of justice, and the need to prevent such crimes in the future.

The workshops also ask schoolchildren to think about what they would do, if they were in the position of the villagers, or of the soldiers, or of the judges at Bordeaux, and that thinking, which is difficult, is the aim of the education, because it teaches children to think about justice, and about responsibility, as well as about history.

Oradour in France and in the world

Oradour is known in France as a symbol of the suffering of civilians, and it is known in the world as one of the best-preserved memorials of a war crime. The site has been visited by heads of state, by survivors of other massacres, and by schoolchildren from many countries, and it is often compared with other memorial sites, such as Lidice in Czechoslovakia, which was also destroyed by the Germans in 1942, and the sites of the Holocaust. The comparison is not exact, because each massacre was different, but it shows that Oradour is part of a wider memory of civilian suffering in the Second World War, and that its preservation as a ruin is a model for how such sites can be remembered.

The site has also been visited by the survivors of other massacres, who come to Oradour to pay their respects, and to share their own testimony, and those visits, which are often reported in the press, show that Oradour is part of a wider, international memory of civilian suffering in war.

10. Legacy

The legacy of Oradour is threefold. First, it is a memorial to 643 named people, whose names are known and whose lives are remembered, and whose deaths are a reminder that war crimes are committed against individuals, not against abstractions. Second, it is a warning: the preserved ruins show, without words, what a war crime looks like, and they are a warning to future generations that such crimes must not be repeated. Third, it is a place of education, where schoolchildren and visitors learn about the Occupation, the Resistance, and the importance of justice, and where the testimony of the survivors is preserved for the future.

A village that was not rebuilt

The decision not to rebuild Oradour was a remarkable decision, and it is the reason the site exists today. General de Gaulle ordered that the ruins be preserved, and the French parliament passed a law in 1946 to preserve the village as a historic monument. The new village was built nearby, and the old village was left as it was, with its houses, its church, its school and its cars, all in ruins. The decision was controversial at the time, because some people thought the village should be rebuilt and life should go on, but it has proved to be the right decision, because the ruins are a more powerful memorial than any new building could be, and because they preserve the evidence of the crime in a way that no museum could.

The law of 1946, which preserved the village, was one of the first laws in France to preserve a site as a memorial to a war crime, and it has been used as a model for the preservation of other sites, in France and in other countries, where a village or a town was destroyed in war.

What Oradour teaches today

What Oradour teaches today is simple, and it is the reason the site is still visited and still taught. It teaches that civilians are the victims of war, that war crimes are committed by people against people, and that remembering the names of the victims is a form of justice, even when the perpetrators are never fully punished. It teaches that a village, an ordinary village on an ordinary Saturday, can be destroyed in an afternoon, and that the only answer to that destruction is to remember, to teach, and to prevent it from happening again. That is the legacy of Oradour-sur-Glane, and it is a legacy that belongs not only to France but to the world.

It also teaches that remembering is not only about the past, but about the future, because a society that remembers its war crimes, and that teaches its children about them, is less likely to commit them again, and that is the hope that the memorial at Oradour represents.

Remembering the victims by name

The names of the victims are the heart of Oradour’s legacy. They are listed at the Centre de la Mémoire, they are read aloud every year on 10 June, and they are the reason the site is not only a ruin but a memorial to people. The list includes 190 men, 245 women and 207 children, and it includes whole families, schoolchildren, the village priest, and visitors who happened to be in Oradour that day. Remembering those names, and the lives they represent, is the work of the memorial, and it is the work that will continue as long as Oradour is preserved and visited.

The list is also updated, from time to time, as researchers identify more victims, or correct the spelling of a name, or add a detail about a life, and that work, which is carried out by the Centre de la Mémoire and by historians, shows that the memory of Oradour is still being researched, and still being completed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened at Oradour-sur-Glane?
On 10 June 1944, soldiers of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich killed 643 people in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in central France, and then set fire to the village and destroyed it.

How many people were killed at Oradour?
643 people were killed, according to the memorial and French authorities: 190 men, 245 women and 207 children. Some lists give 642, with one victim unidentified.

Who were the perpetrators?
Soldiers of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich, commanded in the village that day by Adolf Diekmann, under the division commander Heinz Lammerding.

Why was Oradour chosen?
Historians are not certain. The SS said they were looking for a German officer and for weapons, but none were found. The village was not a military target, and its people were civilians.

Was anyone tried for the massacre?
Yes. In Bordeaux in 1953, 21 men were tried. Most were convicted, but an amnesty in 1953 freed the Alsatian defendants. The senior officers were never brought to justice in France.

Can I visit Oradour-sur-Glane?
Yes. The ruined village and the Centre de la Mémoire are open to visitors. The site is a memorial, and visitors are asked to behave with respect and to speak quietly.

Sources

1. Centre de la Mémoire d’Oradour-sur-Glane, official memorial (oradour.org) — victim figure 643, names, the ruined village and the Centre opened in 1999.
2. Sarah Farmer, Martyred Village: Commemorating the 1944 Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane (University of California Press, 1999) — the massacre, the trial and the preservation of the village.
3. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Encyclopedia, “Oradour-sur-Glane” — 10 June 1944, Das Reich, and the Bordeaux trial of 1953.
4. French Ministry of Culture, Oradour-sur-Glane historic monument — preservation by order of General de Gaulle and the law of 1946.
5. Wikipedia, “Oradour-sur-Glane massacre” — dates, victim breakdown 190 men, 245 women, 207 children, Marguerite Rouffanche, and the Bordeaux trial, cross-checked against the memorial and Farmer.
6. Jean-Jacques Fouché, Oradour: Anatomy of a Massacre — the Das Reich division, Tulle on 9 June 1944, and the events of 10 June 1944.