WOULD EXPELLING HER SOLVE ANYTHING?

" Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, a community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war. Intro to the first episode of The World at War.

I'll be honest I'm still not sure how to title this entry. Most readers probably won't recognize the name of the village.

This young lady and a friend decided, for reasons so far known only to themselves, to draw swastikas on themselves. And let the world know about it. The miracles of social media. Once upon a time only your dorm mates or drinking buddies would know that most of your brain cells were taking a short vacation. Picture from FB entry by the publication Allegemeine.

The young lady of questionalble intelligence and or sobriety in the foreground is a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Several thousand petitioners would like to see her expelled. I'm not sure that would serve any useful purpose. However I would be willing to contribute a sawbuck to buy her a ticket to visit the remains of one of thousands of Nazi atrocities committed during the second world war. Something that might break through the "aren't we cute" smiles. Might. No guranties.

By February 1944 the waffen SS panzer division Das Reich had been pulled out of the eastern front and shipped to France ahead of the expected invasion of Europe by the Allies. Members of the division have been accused of at least one war crime in the east. The massacre of nearly one thousand Jews in Minsk early in the German invasion of the USSR. Post invsion the division was involved in killings on the 7th  and 8th.

June 8, 1944 and most of the inhabitants of the French village of Oradour Sur Glane didn't know that they only had two more days to live.Two more days in a village that had existed for nearly one thousand years. Over one thousand years. Oradour survived wars, starvation, revolution, the reformation. It couldn't survive the Waffen SS.

The explanations have varied over the years. It was claimed that an SS officer from the division was kidnapped or killed by the resistance and the village of Oradour Sur Vayres was involved. In retaliation the Der Fuhrer regiment under Adolf Diekman sealed off the village on the morning of June 10. Oradour Sur Glane, not SurVayres. A mistake? Perhaps. Or maybe the Germans just didn't give a damn.

The villagers were rounded up, told to report to the village square with their identity papers. The assumption was a more thorough than usual identity check because of the activities of the resistance leading up to and during the invasion.

The men were separated from the women and children. The men were marched off to six barns around the village. Machine guns had already been set up. Three village priests were among the dead.

Testimony of Robert Hebras who manage to survive. "It was simply an execution. There were a handful of Nazis in front of us, in their uniforms. They just raised their machine guns and started firing across us, at our legs to stop us getting out. They were strafing, not aiming. Men in front of me just started falling. I got caught by several bullets, but I survived because those in front of me got the full impact. I was so lucky. Four of us in the barn managed to get away because we remained completely still under piles of bodies. One man tried to get away before they had gone – he was shot dead. The SS were walking around and shooting anything that moved. They poured petrol on bodies and then set them alight." His testimony was backed up by that of two or three others who manged to survive killings at other barns.

The women and children were marched to the village church, herded inside, the doors locked. An incendiary divice was set up outside, probably next to a window and exploded. Heavy smoke was the result and filled the churdh. Some died from the smoke. Others tried to escape through the windows and were gunned down. One woman escaped through a window in the sacristy. She was shot, wounded, managed to crawl away ,hid in a garden, She was discovered the next morning. Marguerite Rouffanche lost her family including grandchildren in the massacre. She survived to testify in a war trial after the war.

The church was then set on fire. Anyone still alive died in the fire. A fire so hot the church bell melted. Death toll 190 men, 247 women, 205 children including several infants. When the killing was over the village was looted, blasted and set afire.

There were a few villagers who were not in the village or who managed to slip away before Oradour was cut off. They were allowed to bury the dead a few days later. The remains that could be buried.

The massacre was condemned by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the Vichy government, and the general commanding Limoges. Whether the Germans would have taken action against Diekman or the troops involved will never be known. Diekman and most of the troops who actually carried out the killing were dead themselves within a few days or weeks as the invaison continued. Rommel was injured when his vehicle was strafed. A few weeks later he was dead, a suicide after he was implicated in the attempt to assassinate Hitler in late July. Along with several thousand others. Picture from Wickipedia

Oradour was never rebuilt. It stands. What's left of it. As the SS left it. The ruins have been left as they were by order of the French government. There is a small information center, approximately 300,000 people visit every year.