Silent Village E-Book

Robert Pike

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 684

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

'Based on eye-witness accounts, Robert Pike's moving book vividly depicts the lives of the villagers who were caught up in the tragedy of Oradour-sur-Glane and brings their experiences to our attention for the first time.' - Hanna Diamond, author of Fleeing Hitler On 10 June 1944, four days after Allied forces landed in Normandy, the picturesque village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the rural heart of France was destroyed by an armoured SS Panzer division. Six hundred and forty-three men, women and children were murdered in the nation's worst wartime atrocity. Today, Oradour is remembered as a 'martyred village' and its ruins are preserved, but the stories of its inhabitants lie buried under the rubble of the intervening decades. Silent Village gathers the powerful testimonies of survivors in the first account of Oradour as it was both before the tragedy and in its aftermath. A lost way of life is vividly recollected in this unique insight into the traditions, loves and rivalries of a typical village in occupied France. Why this peaceful community was chosen for extermination has remained a mystery. Putting aside contemporary hearsay, Nazi rhetoric and revisionist theories, in this updated third edition Robert Pike returns to the archival evidence to narrate the tragedy as it truly happened – and give voice to the anguish of those left behind.

Leseprobe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert Pike is a graduate of the University of Exeter in History and French, and attained a Masters degree in Social Science Research Methods at Cardiff University, where he is currently conducting his doctoral research. His first history book, Defying Vichy, was published in 2018. He lives in Worcester and is currently researching the social history of the rural Resistance in central and southern France.

PRAISE FOR DEFYING VICHY

‘A meticulously researched and valuable contribution to the history of the German occupation’

Caroline Moorehead, author of Village of Secrets

‘Pulsating with action and detailed stories’

Rod Kedward, author of La Vie en Blue

‘Pacy and engaging ... A fascinating contribution to the field’

Robert Gildea, author of Fighters in the Shadows

Cover illustration: A view of the Champ de foire looking towards the rue Emile Desourteaux. (Collection Benoit Sadry)

First published 2021

First published in paperback 2022

This paperback edition first published 2024

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Robert Pike, 2021, 2022, 2024

The right of Robert Pike to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 75099 760 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

For the people of Oradour-sur-Glane

A view of Oradour-sur-Glane’s church of Saint-Martin. (Collection Benoit Sadry)

Contents

Forewords

Maps

Timeline

Cast

Author’s Note

Introduction

Part One: The Long Road

Battles of a Priest

The Freedom Tree

The Glove-makers

Autarky

A Well-to-do Village

The Way Home

The Entrepreneur

A Future of Music

‘He Knows How to Teach’

Just a Road Worker

A Picture Postcard

Mobilisation

Evacuees

Turmoil

Exodus

The Road

‘A Surly Man of Great Pessimism’

‘Maréchal, Nous Voilà’

The Mosellans

A Bigger Congregation

The Camp

The Shoes Scandal

The Camp Commander

A Return to Roots

Under Surveillance

A Restricted Life

‘The Prestige of the Marshal Remains Intact’

Bellevue

Occupation

A Store Cupboard for the Reich

The Tanner

The Return of Otto

Réfractaires

The Petites Juives

The Sign of the Gamma

Watching in a Rigorous Silence

Stolen Youth

A New Girl

Link and Filter

Odette

1944

Brehmer

A Summer of Outsiders

Part Two: The Tenth

Gatherings

Early Risers

Fate

Over the Threshold

Clouds in the Morning

Arrival

Intentions

Setting Up a Cordon

They Have Killed One of our Soldiers

Hiding Places

‘The Boches are Here!’

Gunshots

A Round-Up

The Sounds of Separation

The Barn

The Service Tram

Sanctuary

The Laudy-Mosnier Barn

Witnesses

The Sacristy

The Cyclists

Dying of Thirst

Tough Decisions

The Old Man

The Burnt Page

The Evening Tram

The Miraculous

A Path

Part Three: Hellscape

Das Reich

Saint-Junien

Numb

A Key with No Door

Discoveries

Monday and Tuesday

Destinies

A Question of Survival

Whispers

Patry

Filliol

The Cathedral

The Same Question

Smokescreen

Conclusion

Oradour-sur-Glane: From the British Archives

Notes

Select Bibliography

Acknowledgements

Forewords

Oradour-sur-Glane is a martyred village that has become symbolic in France’s national memory. Over the past eighty years it also been the subject of abundant literature. Robert Pike’s book, however, differs significantly from all the others in that its originality lies in its approach to the tragedy.

To tell the story of the destruction of the village and its inhabitants by the Nazis, the author researched the lives of numerous victims and survivors of the tragedy. As a result, over the course of the resulting pages, the reader uncovers this village through a lens of Limousin nostalgia. Through patient research in a variety of archives, the author has brought these many individual stories to life. He allows the reader to imagine daily life in Oradour before the war by following the political, artisanal and commercial activities of its inhabitants, as well as through the lives of its schoolchildren and the religious and community festivities that were held there.

From mobilisation of its men into the army to the arrival of refugees from the north, Alsace and Moselle, life in Oradour through the course of the war is described with the help of these many different portraits. Less well-known details include the presence of a foreign workers’ group that led several Spanish families to settle in the village, and the conditions under which a special delegation was appointed to manage communal affairs in 1941. By cross-checking a multitude of testimonies, depositions and other accounts found in the archives, Robert Pike has also been able to reconstruct, with the precision of a historian, the whole sequence of the tragedy, as if it were the survivors of the massacre of 10 June 1944 that were presenting it to the reader. He describes the reality of the events with great objectivity. The words used are carefully chosen and never excessive, so much so that you can feel the author’s sensitivity and dignity in reporting only what is useful for understanding.

I first met Robert in October 2019. That day, we had a very long discussion about the victims of the Oradour massacre. I was amazed by the knowledge that my British interlocutor had accumulated about the population of the village before the war.

We then continued our discussions over several months, and the initial publication of this book in 2021 enabled me to expand my own knowledge of Oradour in many ways.

A French-language version will be soon available too, undoubtedly raising awareness of the tragedy of Oradour, and revealing the hopes of so many shattered lives. Above all, it will help readers understand that innocent civilians are always the victims of wars, whether past, present, or future.

Benoit Sadry

President of the Association Nationale des

Familles des Martyrs d’Oradour-sur-Glane

April 2024

Nestling in the heart of a rolling green landscape, this village could well be part of the charming British countryside. But instead it is in France, in the no less charming landscape of the Limousin, 20kn west of Limoges. It is called Oradour-sur-Glane.

Robert Pike, a British researcher, set out to explore the history of this village in the department of Haute-Vienne, which was blackened by the massacre of 643 people on 10 June 1944, when the village was destroyed by fire. That day, at around 2 p.m., soldiers from the SS Panzer division ‘Das Reich’ surrounded the village, and rounded up the population, including anyone else who happened to be present at the time. The men were taken to various garages, sheds and storerooms. The women and children were taken to the village church. All were killed and their bodies burned. The village was looted and set on fire.

Robert Pike’s path crossed Oradour-sur-Glane in 1993. It was while with his parents that he discovered the ruins of the martyred village, and he took some photographs for a school project. Since that first contact with this singular place, the village has never left him. For several years he carried out research at the Archives Départementales de l’Haute-Vienne and here in the collections at the Centre de la mémoire d’Oradour, where he worked primarily with private archives, old photographs and eyewitness accounts. The staff at the Centre de la mémoire d’Oradour have always been pleased to welcome Robert, and to support his research through its archives. The significance of Robert’s work lies in the fact that he used and cross-referenced all these sources: those that came from the private collections held here, against the official testimonies. This is what enabled him to delve into the history of the many families.

He looked at the residents of the village, not only the victims of 10 June 1944, but also those who were able to escape or hide when the SS arrived. He considered those who were not in Oradour that day, and those who miraculously survived the massacre. He met the last witnesses to that day. In this book, he presents the story of both the village and its inhabitants. He chronicles life in the village, revealing a gallery of portraits, destinies and stories of ordinary lives. It is through these that the reader learns the history of the village. The many personal accounts are mixed with photographs of the old village and its people seen living their lives with families and friends, working in the fields or in workshops, and in the shops and cafés.

This book, also now translated into French, enables as many people as possible to discover the story of Oradour-sur-Glane, and those who lived there.

Babeth Robert

Directrice, Centre de la Mémoire

d’Oradour-sur-Glane

April 2024

Maps

Timeline

1906

February Paul Desourteaux becomes mayor of Oradour-sur-Glane, taking over from his father Emile who dies in service.

1911

August The establishment of an electric tramway station in Oradour. Président de la République Raymond Poincaré visits.

1914–18

First World War Ninety-nine men from the commune are killed. With the mayor away serving in the army, socialist Joseph Beau acts as mayor. Many men return emotionally and physically scarred.

1919

December Joseph Beau is elected mayor of Oradour.

1938

10 April Edouard Daladier becomes head of government, ending the Popular Front (Front Populaire) which, for two years, had been a left-wing coalition under Léon Blum.

1939

January Mass arrival of Spanish refugees, fleeing Franco’s regime, into southern France.

September Evacuees from Schiltigheim, Strasbourg, arrive in Oradour.

3 September Britain and France declare war on Germany.

26 September French Communist party outlawed.

1940

10 May German offensive in Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg.

May–June An estimated 8 million people flee south from northern France, Paris and the Low Countries in an unprecedented ‘exodus’.

9 June French government quits Paris.

16 June Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigns. Philippe Pétain takes over.

17 June Pétain broadcasts to the nation.

18 June De Gaulle issues his appeal from London.

22 June Franco-German armistice.

10 July National Assembly in Vichy votes full powers to Pétain.

27 September Jews in the southern zone are prohibited from returning to the occupied zone.

22–4 October Pierre Laval and then Pétain meet Adolf Hitler in Montoire.

1 November The German operation Aktion D begins in Alsace-Lorraine, leading to the arrival in Oradour-sur-Glane of refugees from the Moselle region.

1941

April Mayor Joseph Beau is caught up in a controversy regarding shoes for refugees. He is replaced by Paul Desourteaux.

Spring 643rd Groupe de Travailleurs Étrangers (GTE) is established just outside Oradour.

22 June Germany invades the USSR.

22 July Law on the aryanisation of Jewish property is passed.

October A Resistance group linked to Libération-sud is established in Limoges.

1942

27 March First French Jews sent to Auschwitz.

22 June Laval introduces La Relève, a programme that returns one prisoner of war held in Germany for every three volunteers sent to work in the Reich.

25 August Germans introduce conscription in Alsace-Lorraine.

26–8 August Round-ups of Jews in the non-occupied zone begin.

8 November Allied invasion of North Africa.

11 November Germany occupies the southern zone.

1943

26 January Creation of the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR), driven by Jean Moulin.

30 January The Milice is formed, headed by Joseph Darnand.

17 February The Service du Travail Obligatoire (STO) is brought into operation, replacing La Relève.

1944

Late March–April The Brehmer division terrorises the Limousin region.

6 June D-Day landings in Normandy.

7 JuneMaquis leader Georges Guingouin is urged by Communist party officials to liberate the city of Limoges. He refuses.

8 June Saint-Junien is occupied by the Wehrmacht after a soldier is shot by the maquis. Two days later, elements of the SS Panzer division Das Reich arrive.

9 June Tulle, briefly liberated by the maquis, is reclaimed by the Wehrmacht, aided by elements of Das Reich. Ninety-nine men are hanged from the town’s lamp posts and a further 149 people are deported.

10 June The SS massacre in Oradour-sur-Glane.

21 June A service is held in Limoges Cathedral in memory of the victims, leading to tensions in the city centre.

25 August The Germans surrender in Paris.

1945

4 March General de Gaulle visits Oradour and promises to fund its conservation as a site of memory.

26 April Pétain gives himself up to the French authorities.

8 May Germany surrenders.

July Trial of Pétain in Paris.

October Trial and execution of Laval.

1953

12 February The Procès de Bordeaux, a military tribunal, opens and twenty-two men are tried for the events at Oradour.

19 February The French parliament votes an amnesty law, reducing the sentences passed in Bordeaux.

20 February The municipal council decides to return the Croix de la Légion d’honneur and the Croix de Guerre awarded to the village.

1983

May–June Heinz Barth becomes the most senior member of Das Reich to be put on trial in East Berlin. He is given a life sentence but is released in 1997.

Cast

Avril, Marie

Ran the Hôtel Avril after the death of her second husband. Her daughter, Marguerite Laurence, brought her husband Henri and their children to the village when Paris was occupied.

Avril, Michel

Wood merchant who also sold other fuels including petrol.

Bardet, Denise

Taught at the girls’ school and lived with her mother, Louise, and brother, Camille, in a nearby hamlet.

Beau, Joseph

Socialist mayor of the village from 1914 to 1941.

Beaubreuil, Martial

An escaped prisoner of war; he hid in the grocery store.

Beaubreuil, Maurice

Evaded obligatory work service (STO) by hiding in the Mercier store with his older brother.

Bélivier, Marcel

Son of a farmer in the hamlet of Les Brégères.

Bergmann, Joseph

Barber in the Café du Chêne. German and Jewish by birth, though most believed him to be Austrian.

Besson, Robert

Young veteran of the 1940 war whose family ran a textile shop.

Bielsa, Millán

Former medic; refugee from Spain sent as an inmate to the 643rd Groupe de Travailleurs Étrangers (GTE).

Binet, Andrée

Head of the girls’ school but absent in early 1944 due to a difficult pregnancy.

Biver, Gilberte

Refugee from Moselle; met Jean Henry, then a camp warden at the 643rd GTE, and moved with him to the Paris area.

Blum, Léon

Jewish politician; prime minister in the Popular Front (Front Populaire) government. Arrested by the Vichy authorities.

Bonnet, Madeleine

Ward of the state; worked as a live-in housemaid for Jeanne Mercier.

Borie, Mathieu

Builder from Limoges with a workshop in Oradour; part of a Resistance network.

Bouchoule, Léopold

One of the village’s bakers.

Brandy, Eugénie

Owner of the Café Central. Of her three daughters, Andrée worked at the tram station and Jeannine worked as a hairdresser and was married to mechanic Aimé Renaud. Youngest daughter Antoinette worked alongside her mother in the café and, like her mother, also sewed gloves.

Brissaud, Martial

Wheelwright who worked with his father on the western edge of the village.

Chapelle, Jean-Baptiste

Oradour’s long-serving priest.

Compain, Maurice

Pâtissier with a shop on the Champ de foire.

Coppenolle, Berthe and

Business partners from Roubaix who arrived as

Crombé, Jeanne

refugees with their families and moved into the La Lauze farm.

Coudert, Georges

Young police inspector based in Limoges.

Couty, Odette

Teacher brought in to replace Andrée Binet.

Couvidou, Germaine

Albert Valade’s sister; young mother of four who lived at the Valade tenant farm.

Dagoury, Mélanie

Owner of Le Restaurant de la Promenade and her late husband’s cement and masonry business.

Darnand, Joseph

Former soldier; created the Milice to combat the Resistance.

Darthout, Jean-Marcel

Part of the football team; aspired to be a teacher but had to find alternative work to avoid a call up to STO. His father, François, was a postal worker.

Denis, Léon

Wineseller, municipal councillor and leader of a musical society.

Desourteaux, André

Grandson of mayors Joseph Beau and Paul Desourteaux; son of grocers Emile and Alice.

Desourteaux, Hubert

Son of Paul; a mechanic with a garage on the main street.

Desourteaux, Paul

Former mayor; political opponent of Joseph Beau. Head of the special delegation, mayor in all but name, in 1944.

Doutre, Paul

Eldest of two brothers; hidden by his family when called up for STO in Germany.

Dupic, François and Jean

Brothers who each ran their own textile shop.

Filliol, Jean

Directeur général of the Deuxième service, the ‘action and information’ service – a kind of Gestapo of the French Milice.

Foussat, André

Miller from a nearby hamlet; served on the municipal council and ran the amateur dramatic society.

Freund-Valade, Marc

‘Prefect’ of the Haute-Vienne from September 1943.

Gaudy, Yvonne

Teenage girl who sewed gloves for the Saint-Junien factories.

de Gaulle, Charles

Leader of the Free French who left for London in June 1940.

Godfrin, Roger

Arrived with his family after the Moselle was cleared of Franco-phone elements; 7 years old in June 1944.

Gougeon, Fernand

Teacher in Moselle; taught in the school for refugees.

Guingouin, Georges

Former teacher and one of the first men to take to the maquis.

Hébras, Robert

Son of Jean, a former employee of the tramway, and Marie, who sewed for extra money. Aspired to be a pâtissier but circumstances led to him becoming a mechanic in Limoges. He had three sisters, two older than him, one a decade his junior.

Henry, Jean

Music teacher who became a guard at the Oradour camp. Met his wife, a refugee from Moselle, in Oradour.

Hyvernaud, Fernand

Dealer in farm animals whose house and barns were next to the church. His daughter Henriette Joyeux had married and moved away but visited Oradour with husband Marcel and baby son René.

Jakobowicz, David

Son of Jewish immigrants who became involved with the maquis.

Jakobowicz, Sarah

Hidden by Martial Machefer when her brother David’s clandestine activities placed the family in danger.

Kanzler, Joseph

Jewish man who stayed in the village with his family when most of the Schiltigheim evacuees returned north to a nazified Strasbourg.

Lamaud, Marie and Jean

Looked after various pupilles de l’assistance publique (wards of the state) at their Bellevue farm.

Lang, Jules and Jeanne

Jewish couple who came to Oradour from Bordeaux.

Laval, Pierre

Former lawyer who became head of the government under Pétain.

de Lavérine,

Owner of several properties in Oradour and the Chalet Saint-Vincent, where her son Hubert and his family lived after fleeing Paris.

Lesparat, Fernand

Son of a wheelwright; first cousin of Resistance agent Albert Mirablon.

Lévignac, Alphonse

Brought his sons Serge and Charles to the village to stay with families during the summer.

Lévy, Nathan

Jewish dentist from Rennes who crossed the demarcation line when his business was expropriated.

Lorich, Jacques

Curate for the village of Charly; arrived in Oradour with his fellow villagers and sister Angélique.

Machefer, Martial

Married to Anna, with two young children. Let go from a paper mill because of his activism; set up as a cobbler but was still under surveillance for his past as a communist militant.

Maire, Gabriel

Arrived with the refugees from Alsace-Lorraine and set up a butcher’s shop.

Mercier, Jeanne

Ran a café-bar and a grocery store in the lower village with son René.

Milord, Léon

Restauranteur who ran the Hôtel Milord with his wife.

Morlieras, Lucien

Owner of a café-bar and barber shop, with attached hat shop, in the lower village. Married to Catherine, with a teenaged daughter called Irène.

Mosnier, Marie

Widowed owner of several properties and farms. Sheltered her nephew Jacques Garaud, who was avoiding STO.

Otto, José María

German with a Spanish background tasked with recruiting Spanish workers from the GTE camps, then put in charge of the Oradour camp.

Pascaud, Marcel

Young pharmacist who opened a business in the village in 1938.

Patry, Eugène

Milicien and interpreter for the Gestapo.

Penot, Robert

Pupille de l’assistance publique who was moved to the Bellevue farm.

Pétain, Philippe

Celebrated leader in the First World War; became prime minister under President Paul Reynaud before being awarded full powers as France’s leader during the Vichy regime.

Picat, Maurice

Regisseur (land agent) and owner of La Lauze farm.

Pinède, Robert

Jewish leatherworker who brought his family to the village after his Bayonne business was appropriated.

Poutaraud, Pierre

Mechanic with a garage in the centre of the village; father to seven children.

Rastouil, Louis Paul

Bishop of Limoges.

Redon, Emile

Entrepreneur; ran a café-bar and grocer’s on the Champ de foire with his daughter Irène and second wife. He also owned an apple press and sold building sand, which he dredged himself.

Redon, Hippolyte

Blacksmith farrrier who lived outside the village where his wife ran a lodging house.

Rouffanche, Marguerite

Tenant farmer (métayer) along with husband Simon. Moved from a farm in the centre to another in Puy-Gaillard, on the other side of the River Glane.

Roumy, Jean

Municipal councillor and head of the Légion (veteran’s association); dealer in farming products. His son, Albert, was enrolled as part of the operation Todt in Bordeaux.

Rousseau, Léonard

Mayoral secretary; taught in the boys’ school along with wife Jeanne.

Santrot, Jules and Paul

Father and son with a tailoring business.

Senon, Armand

Employed at the Bouchoule bakery; his father, Jean, rented and worked a farm on the Champ de foire with his brother-in-law. Broke his leg playing football the week before the SS came to Oradour.

Senon, Camille

Attended a professional training school in Limoges, returning to Oradour on the weekends; daughter of Martial, a roadworker, and Catherine.

Senon, Daniel

Escaped prisoner of war; postman.

Simon, Marguerite

Parisian girl sent by her single mother, Amélie, to live with her uncle, Hippolyte Redon.

Thomas, Marcellin

Baker with a shop near the lower village.

Tournier, Jean-Baptiste

Employee at the Limoges town hall; ran music lessons in Oradour and was head of the l’Avenir Musical.

Valade, Albert

Left school at 13 to work as a cattle herder on his father Jean’s tenant farm.

Valentin, Marie

Operated the town’s weighing equipment opposite the Champ de foire; married to a barber, Jean.

de Vaugelas, Jean

Directeur général du maintien de l’ordre for the region of Haute-Vienne from spring 1944.

Verny, Françoise

Housemaid to wine merchant Léon Denis.

Villatte, Pierre

Retired soldier and farmworker who set up a bureau-tabac with his wife, Mélanie.

Villéger, Marguerite

Lived and worked at the Masset farm with husband Jean and their children.

Vincent, Raymonde

Teacher at the primary school; married, with a child.

Author’s Note

Many of the sources used in the writing of this book were drawn directly from archives. One of the consequences of this is that use of language reflects contemporary understanding and beliefs. For this reason, it should be noted at the outset that the use of ‘Germans’ in relation to the Nazi SS troops who were at Oradour does not reflect the fact, only later known by the protagonists, that many of these soldiers were recruited from other countries, including France. These young men were often recruited forcibly. The use of the word ‘Boche’ in reference to Germans is outdated in France, as well as pejorative. These days it is rarely used and is only included here for historical accuracy.

Introduction

In the midst of a typically Limousin country scene where wide fields were dotted with woodland, and the stones of a stream filtered clear water through nooks and crannies that hid trout and crayfish, Oradour-sur-Glane stood.1

In January 2020, Spanish grandmother Ramona Domínguez Gil was pronounced by the Limoges High Court to be the 643rd victim of the massacre of the French village of Oradour-sur-Glane, which took place on 10 June 1944. She died alongside her daughter-in-law Marina, and her three grandchildren, 11-year-old Miquel, 7-year-old Harmonia, and 21-month-old Llibert. They were rounded up by the Schutzstaffel (SS) and locked in a church with hundreds of other women and children. The soldiers told them that their village was being searched while their husbands, fathers and sons were kept hostage. After a while the SS asphyxiated them with acrid black smoke, before riddling them with machine-gun bullets. Then the church was locked and set alight. Only one person, a grandmother herself, escaped.

Ramona’s son, Juan Téllez Domínguez Almirall, met a similarly horrific fate. Like many of the village’s men, he was locked in one of the nearby barns before being shot, covered with combustible materials and burned. The massacre took place four days after Allied soldiers landed in Normandy when, for the first time in four years, the people of southern France were feeling hopeful about the future. Word of the tragedy spread, albeit slowly, and when General de Gaulle went there to pay homage to its victims, he agreed that the ruins should be preserved as a monument to the martyrs of Oradour.

Ramona Domínguez Gil, the 643rd Oradour victim. (Archives départementales de la Haute-Vienne, 985 W 1570)

A list of 642 names of victims was assiduously put together over a number of years. The name of Ramona Domínguez Gil was not on it, despite the list appearing some time after a plaque to twenty Spanish victims was installed by the Junta Española de Liberación (JEL) between 1944 and 1945. By the time a later plaque was installed, based on the official list of 642 victims, two names had disappeared, including Ramona’s. From that point on, the list was considered definitive and she was forgotten. Very few people remained from the village following the massacre, and they simply did not know the Spanish victims well enough. Most of the bodies in the church and the barns had been reduced to cinders and were unrecognisable.

In 2013, a plaque was placed in a hamlet called La Fauvette, a short stroll from the centre of the preserved village. Its purpose was to commemorate a site where Spanish exiles were ‘interned’ and thoroughly exploited for labour purposes between 1940 and 1942. This camp was the base of one of France’s many Groupes de Travailleurs Étrangers (GTE). Coincidentally, the Oradour camp is listed as the 643rd GTE. The Spanish contingent in Oradour, and most throughout the rest of southern France, was fleeing the Franco regime. The men had fought the republican cause and brought their families with them, or some followed later, and most suffered awful conditions crossing the Pyrenees. When they arrived, they were interned by the French authorities before being redirected to GTE camps where, along with other undesirables such as Jews and communists, the men were made to work in menial jobs just to earn enough to keep their families alive. In late 1942 the camp was moved from Oradour to a different village nearby, but the families remained where they were. Some of the women had found jobs, and the children were enrolled in Oradour’s schools. On Saturday 10 June 1944, most of the Spanish men were at assigned work. Hence, of the nineteen Spanish victims now known to have died in the flames of Oradour, six were women, eleven were children and only two were men, both of whom were extremely unlucky to be in the village at the moment the SS arrived.

Recent research has uncovered the story of the 643rd GTE Oradour and the people interned and assigned to work there.2 The small Spanish contingent had become a footnote to a tragic event that led to the destruction of countless French families. But their presence is a significant detail in the story of France at the end of the Third Republic, the subsequent advent of an authoritarian and collaborationist regime known as Vichy France and the beginning of the period of full occupation by the Nazis. How the Spanish were treated, for example, tells us much about the various strata of society in a small community such as Oradour. How their individual stories have been established amongst 643 victims illustrates how important research of ordinary people is necessary, fascinating and impacts on the question of memorialisation.

Of Oradour’s buildings, nothing was left standing. The Nazi aim had been to erase the community from the map. They very nearly succeeded. Three or four generations of families were murdered, and whole classes of schoolchildren were not spared. Those who lost their lives have always been referred to by the French as martyrs – a term assigned to them immediately after the war. But Oradour’s people and their occupations, family ties and views on the world deserve to be better understood.

The village has been commemorated as idyllic – a mythical island in Vichy France. But the existence of the 643rd GTE was a part of its story that was almost lost in time, as was the interaction of its community with such outsiders. Oradour also played host to evacuees, refugees and expelled families from the north of France and further afield. In this respect, and many others, it was a typical village in the political cooking pot that was Vichy France. Jewish families hid there, as did evaders of forced work service and members of the illegal Communist party. Its local governance changed through scandal and the effects of national and international politics. The village was central to the lives of different sorts of people, including the peasant farmers of surrounding hamlets who did all they could to thrive under a new regime. The village’s close links with bigger towns, including a tram link to the city of Limoges, gave it manifold benefits but also made it both susceptible and vulnerable to outsiders. The Vichy regime gave rise to resistance just as it did to people who chose to collaborate. This book is a case study of a small piece of Vichy France. The community before the massacre is placed under the microscope with a view to unravelling names from the collective martyrdom.

Why Oradour was chosen has emerged as a central question, giving rise to negationist history and even conspiracy theories. This book illustrates how the event came about. Some elements to certain questions are simply unanswerable. The context of the Oradour massacre was created entirely elsewhere, out of the hands of the village’s inhabitants for whom the event was as unexpected as it was undeserved. It was simply an event that fitted into a much larger story.

This book is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the town and people of Oradour in the years leading towards the fateful day in June 1944. The second part is an account of what happened, seen entirely through the eyes of those who were there, or nearby. The third part focuses on the context of events leading up to the massacre, and in the weeks that followed. Research is drawn largely from first-hand accounts given in the months after the massacre, or from oral accounts given in interviews with four survivors whose stories are central to the narrative. These same four people helped me enormously in the preparation of the first half of the book, as I was able to clarify details pertaining to their lives before and after the destruction of their home village.

Robert Hébras was one of only five men to escape the Laudy-Mosnier barn, itself one of five locations where the village’s men were shot. His escape is a remarkable story, but he was also able to help me understand life for a young man in the village, as well as in nearby Limoges where he worked. Of his immediate family, he lost his mother and two sisters.

André Desourteaux, grandson of two of the town’s mayors, was a 19-year-old witness to life in the village. The Desourteaux family was as much a part of Oradour as the main street which bore its name. André was working a shift at the postal office in Limoges when the SS arrived, and returned home to find his village destroyed and the soldiers still there. He had his key ready to open his front door, but there was no home left. He lost almost every member of his family.

Camille Senon lived and worked in Limoges and came back to her home village of Oradour to see her parents each Saturday evening. On 10 June 1944 she arrived by the evening tram to see her village in flames and was part of a group of passengers held by the SS for several hours, and taunted, before being dramatically released. She witnessed the ongoing destruction of the village and lost her father, grandfather, aunt and uncle, as well as a great number of other close family members.

Albert Valade lived on a farm in the nearby hamlet of Le Mas du Puy. He lost his older sister, who went to the village to collect two of her children from school. He witnessed the arrival of the soldiers and the anxious wait in the villages for the return of the schoolchildren. While watching from a field, a partially burned page, which he recognised as from a book of the catechism used at church, landed at his feet. He was able to help me understand life for Limousin farmers, the peasantry of the countryside.

PART ONE

THE LONG ROAD

Battles of a Priest

Over the course of decades, the sight of Oradour-sur-Glane’s priest rushing to mass had become an integral feature of the village’s landscape. Jean Baptiste Chapelle would ‘pass right through the village, usually running late. His was a heavy silhouette, moving quickly, head down, greeting no-one, absorbed only in his thoughts.’1 Occasionally, brave children would shout some quip at the sight of him, despite knowing that the old man disliked being made fun of. The following Sunday, he would not fail to make acid remarks about such behaviour in his sermon. Chapelle was ‘a cold, serious man who always wore his round hat pulled tight to his skull, casting a shadow over a face chiselled by deep wrinkles. Large shoes, legendary in size, protruded from his long black cassock, further accentuating his stern appearance.’2

The man’s commitment to his flock could not be disputed. Each Sunday morning, Chapelle embarked on a marathon of a routine. Following morning mass, sometimes taken alone, he would eat a hearty breakfast consisting of a bowl of café au lait topped with soaked bread. Then he walked to Javerdat, a large village some 5km north-west of Oradour, to where he had been expected to extend his ministry since the beginning of the First World War. After giving mass there he would walk back to Oradour to conduct yet another.

Born to the east of Limoges – a world away at the time – Chapelle had been Oradour’s priest since 1911, the same year as the installation of a brand-new tram stop. This provided a direct and speedy link from the agricultural backwater that was Oradour-sur-Glane to the sprawling city of Limoges. During the decades preceding the dark years of German occupation, Chapelle faced his own battles. The first concerned the need to ensure that the size of his congregation did not shrink beyond respectability. In 1925 he indicated in a letter to the Archbishop of Limoges that only around 100 people were attending mass on a normal Sunday, which worked out at around 5 per cent of the population of the commune.3 He also recorded his concerns regarding what he considered to be a struggle to maintain the Christian integrity of his parishioners. He did his best to bring them on board by organising retreats and even a diocesan pilgrimage to Lourdes. Special celebrations took place at Easter and on All Saints’ Day, known in France as Toussaint, and these were generally well attended, as were baptisms, weddings and confirmations. He lamented that the church had become a place only for such occasions while numbers at Sunday worship continued to decline. During days set aside for worship, the younger generation, he reported, chose to engage in activities unbecoming to the Catholic faith. On ‘Sundays, festival days and fairs’, he claimed, ‘young men and women, often encouraged by their mothers, indulge in voluptuous dances day and night until all hours’. This, he implied, was leading to a rise in ‘relations forbidden by the law of God and honest people, sometimes resulting in devastating scandals’.4 He also bemoaned the regular consumption of too much alcohol, leading to drunkenness.

Chapelle relied heavily on early recruitment of parishioner children through an insistence on them attending a course of catechism. For the young baptised of Oradour, this meant an inescapable invitation to attend regular Bible studies on a Thursday morning, beginning at Toussaint. This was intended to prepare youngsters for the taking of communion, but it also helped Chapelle to limit falling attendance at mass. As Thursday was not a school day, parents were often happy for their children to receive religious instruction as a means of keeping them off the street, even if they themselves no longer regularly attended church, if indeed at all. The children were often less enthusiastic. Sessions were held in the morning for those who lived in the village, at midday for children from the surrounding villages and on Sunday for the children of a small school located in a hamlet called Deulidou. Chapelle would greet his students on the steps of the church before leading them to the two-storey sacristy at the building’s rear where he would have already set out several rows of benches. Each new pupil would be given a well-used book of the catechism, to be paid for in a future session. The children were generally in awe of the man and listened intently to his deep, powerful voice.

For centuries, the Church had played a central role for the people of Oradour, but by the end of the 1920s even the rite of passage of catechism was less popular. Children of farming families were needed in the fields, and more and more children came from families with little or no connection to the Church. This situation would only worsen in the 1930s with the arrival of socialism, further extending the availability of secular education to all and dampening the flames of clerical authority.

In order to understand the village under the period of the Vichy regime and under the German occupation, it is important to consider how its community had been affected by the decades preceding it. The First World War had left a devastating effect on the country as a whole but the Limousin was spared the worst of its ravages. The fields of the Limousin were far from the blood-soaked trenches and flattened towns of the north, but the level of conscription meant that almost every household had been affected. The French as a whole had no wish to see a repeat of the conflict and the people of Oradour were no different. The commune had lost ninety-nine men. Others, such as wheelwright Martial Brissaud and textile merchant Jean Dupic, had returned with life-changing injuries. During the 1920s and 1930s, two associations, the Mutilés du Limousin and the Combattants du Limousin,5 gave political voice to veterans, known as poilus. While such associations tended to reflect a right-wing worldview, pacifism reigned. So too did a certain apathy towards the political institutions that had taken France to war. In time, left-leaning politics would emerge from nearby industrial centres and agricultural unions to threaten the hegemony of the established leadership of clerics and right-leaning local politicians from established, wealthy families.

The influence of the Church may have been waning, but life within the village was still focused around its festivals. The Radounauds, as Oradour’s villagers were known, were rightly proud of their ancient and sacred building. Nobody knows whether the Église Saint-Martin was the first church built in the village, but it is known that its central element, the choir, dates from the twelfth century. It was fortified during the religious wars as churches became central strongpoints. A visitor from Limoges, approaching the village from higher ground, would be struck by the square bell tower, which offered ‘a very characteristic type of military architecture. The two corners of the western facade are supported by massive buttresses which meet at right angles and support turrets supported by corbels, veritable watch towers.’6

Though small, the Romanesque church had four altars, two on each side of the building, and a maître-autel (main altar) under three east-facing windows at the furthest end from the main entrance. Those windows gave over a small but steep bank that led down to the tracks of the tramway and the bridge over the River Glane. The main entrance was located underneath the ancient bell tower. There was one further exterior door, in the corner of the southern wall, where the Sainte-Anne chapel sat just metres from the edge of the rectory. A small window alongside that door was complemented by several other similarly sized windows in each of the other three small chapels, and the confessional box was tucked into the north-western corner of the nave, not visible from the main entrance. Due to a significant difference in the level of the ground, the radiating chapel was above cellars which served as storage areas. A further door could be found leading into one of these storage areas, latterly used as the lower level of the sacristy. And its upper level was accessed via a door to the left of the maître-autel in the south-eastern corner of the building. This was a room into which few villagers would have ventured except for catechism.

Despite the dwindling regular congregation, religious occasions dominated the rhythm of family life in Oradour. Baptism was followed by catechism, which led to communion and there was often later a wedding, and the cycle would begin again. Festivals, largely dictated by the Christian calendar and the agricultural year, dominated the social life of Radounauds. Throughout the countryside, festival dates were intended for the immediate community but, as word spread through newspaper announcements, people from all over would flock to any village known to put on a good show for major fairs. The biggest fixture in Oradour’s diary was the annual fête patronale, known locally as the Grande Frairie. This usually began on the final Sunday of August and lasted until the end of the following day. It was a celebration of the end of the gros travaux de l’été (the major agricultural works of the summer), as well as les moissons (the harvest). Many of the attractions would arrive earlier in the week and the villagers were given the opportunity to preview what was to come before the crowds arrived, many of whom would be brought by the tramway.

At six o’clock on Sunday morning, festivities would begin with the fanfare (reveil) and with the firing of artillery. At nine o’clock, a fishing competition took place in the waters of the Glane – an extremely popular event with prizes to be won. A cycling race took place in the afternoon for which competitors had to sign up in advance either in Saint-Junien or Oradour by providing evidence that their cycle was licensed and paying the 3-franc entrance fee. Once the race was complete – for which a significant cash prize of over 100 francs could be won, as well as runners-up cash prizes – the evening festivities would begin. L’Avenir Musical, the village’s own orchestra, gave a concert followed at nine o’clock by a firework display, and finally more music into the night. An extra tram set off for Limoges at eleven thirty. The bars would be full throughout the day and the pâtissier would sell cheap cakes and bread rolls.

The following day’s organised events began with a parade, showcasing music and traditional costumes of the villages, and Limousin dancing. In the early 1940s, a float – the disguised truck of garage owner Pierre Poutaraud – was followed by musicians and dancers as it made its way to the lower village before heading out to the surrounding countryside. André Foussat, a dignitary and director of the village’s theatrical group, announced activities that were on offer that afternoon through a loudhailer. At four o’clock the games began, the most popular being the mât de cocagne (the greasy pole). This was held in the centre of the Champ de foire (fairground), Oradour’s sizeable village green. Young people from all around would come and attempt to claim a prize from a bicycle wheel attached to the top of a well-soaped mast. As well as actual prizes attached to the wheel, there were also pieces of paper with prizes written on them – a leg of lamb, a ham, a turkey or (least desirable of all) a sausage. Before attempting the game in front of a baying crowd, competitors had to undergo an inspection of their shoes to check they were not cheating by adding grips. The game went on until all the prizes had gone.

There were sack races for the children, and the jeu de la brouette, the aim of which was to win a race while pushing a sideless wheelbarrow containing a hopping frog. The jeu de la cruche was for adults – a series of pitchers were suspended from a line at a height of around 2½ metres, most containing a piece of paper with a prize written on it, but one containing cold water. The participant was given a stick and then blindfolded and spun around. The object of the game was to hit a pitcher and receive either a prize or a soaking. Sweet stalls for children were accompanied by a barrel organ, target-shooting stands and any number of other attractions, such as lucky dips. Adults and children could ride on chairs suspended by chains that spun around, though the carousel with its wooden horses was specially reserved for little ones. The smell of sweet treats was everywhere and parents who brought their children from the farms would reward them more than they would on any other day of the year. Groups of children would run from stall to stall, warned not to stray further than the confines of the place (square). The villagers would head home as darkness descended, by which time the bars, cafés and restaurants would have done a good trade. On both days there would be a ball that would continue late into the night. Curious children might watch the dancers before finally giving in to tiredness and dreams of doing it all again the following year.

Before embarking on a period of Lent, which was generally respected by eating a less rich diet, mardi gras was celebrated with beef stew known as pot-au-feu. The children, given a day off school, dressed up as witches, burlesque ladies or mythical beings, and knocked on doors around the village, hoping for pieces of cake and other sweet treats. The mi-carême, or mid-lent, was celebrated with a masked ball in one of the village’s hotels or cafés. After Lent came the fête du bas du bourg, a celebration held in the lower part of the village, around the covered market, overlooked by the church. Robert Hébras, a child during the late 1920s, described it as ‘modest enough, it was little more than a small fairground ride, two or three cake and sweet stalls, a lucky dip stall and a shooting gallery. But our few pennies were used up after two goes on the roundabout, and a few sweets.’7 While the adults went to the Hôtel Milord to dance, the children played hide and seek to the sound of an accordion playing until their parents put them to bed. The dance continued late into the night. Another day of simple pleasures, like the other festivals and celebrations that would only be missed when they disappeared from the lives of the Radounauds.

The Freedom Tree

In 1923, a journalist from Toulouse recalled an earlier visit to the peaceful, idyllic village:

Oradour-sur-Glane! I remember it. You could get there on the mail cart. When you passed the bridge over the Glane, so lively and clear, you would see the village a slope before you, grey gables and red roofs in amongst the trees. The climb was steep as far as the church, humble on its little terrace, but contrasting with the sweeping frontage of the homes of the village squires. Further on was the Champ de foire and then, beyond the villas, the road to Javerdat stretched out into the sweet, deep chestnut groves. Somewhere nearby, behind the village centre, a pathway crossed a stream packed with enormous crayfish that we would catch and put into baskets made from bundles of thorn bushes. (La Dépêche, 23 February 1923)

The name Oradour, from the Latin Oratio, via its Occitan form of Oradores and Limousin patois L’Ouradou, means ‘place of prayer’.1 Another suggestion is that the name comes from Oratorium and indicates an old chapel, perhaps a chapel at a crossroads, which might have been preceded by a small pagan monument and could have had a role in the process of burying the dead.2 Indeed, a further twelfth-century monument called the lanterne des morts d’Oradour-sur-Glane was erected in the middle of the cemetery. Recognised by ministerial decision as a precious monument in 1926, the stone structure was adorned with a covered top section in which candles were lit during times of mourning. It was originally located on the left bank of the Glane, near the church, but in 1773 the cemetery was relocated and the lantern dismantled and moved, stone by stone, to its current position in the cemetery. Just to the north of Oradour-sur-Glane, the tiny village of Oradour-Saint-Genest is a reminder of the commonality of the name in the Haute-Vienne. Due south, at a distance of some 30km or so, lies Oradour-sur-Vayres. Further east, on the other side of the nearby city of Limoges, the tiny hamlet of Oradour-les-Linards would eventually shelter a well-known Resistance chief.

The tram to Limoges alongside Oradour’s station. The post office is visible on the left. (Collection Benoit Sadry)

For all its proximity to the city of Limoges, Oradour was a rural village, surrounded by agricultural land and forestry, both of which provided livelihoods for the commune’s inhabitants. Quarries and marshes provided industry for tilemakers, and several sawmills scattered the area. The making of planks, the preparation of wood and charcoal, and the fabrication of paper were all important industries in the Haute-Vienne.

The monthly foires (fairs), were vital for Oradour-sur-Glane’s local economy. Over the centuries, travelling merchants set up their own permanent shops in the village. Its micro-economy thrived as small businesses and tradesmen became central to the soul of the main village, or bourg. When, in 1789, it became the centre of the commune it boasted a baker, a wine seller, a carpenter, a butcher, two potters, a paper maker, a blacksmith farrier, two tailors, a miller and six textile workers. Over the coming decades it became a hub for the surrounding villages, with its businesses and all-important public services. New houses and villas were built, and the shops became more attractive to visit. Functionality led to expanded ranges advertised in local papers, quality items and even competition.

Even before electricity was supplied to the village, the construction of the electrified tram3 boosted the local economy. Inaugurated in August 1911, the line from Limoges north-west to Bussière-Poitevine ran straight through the main street, the rue Emile Desourteaux. The narrow-gauge tracks became an integral part of the sloping street that brought together ancient rurality and forward-facing modernity. Every day the tram passed five times in each direction and for 1 franc and 35 centimes a passenger could take the one-and-a-quarter-hour journey to Limoges. In 1926 a separate post office was built to replace the rented building in which it had been previously located. This fine-looking detached building, complete with ornate decorative frontage, was located near the tram stop and the town hall.

In March 1848, after the proclamation of the Second Republic ushered in municipal elections, Jean Baptiste Desourteaux became the first elected mayor of Oradour. Previously the mayor and his deputy had been designated by the prefect, often for places that did not contain their own homes. The chêne de la liberté (freedom tree), planted near Desourteaux’s home in his honour, was said to have bottles of wine among its roots.

The name of the well-to-do Desourteaux family became ingrained in the fabric of life and politics in Oradour-sur-Glane. Three generations would serve as mayor, as well as being the village’s medical doctors. The Desourteaux mayors were right-wing republicans, and a well-established example of the landed gentry. The main street was named after Emile Desourteaux, the son of Jean-Baptiste, who was elected in May 1892 after twenty-two years on the municipal council. He died in service in February 1906 and was succeeded by his son Paul.

Having taken over the family’s medical practice in the centre of Oradour, Paul married Marie from the Bourgogne. The couple had their first child, a daughter known as Alyette,4 in 1903, a year after their wedding. At the age of 10 Alyette was given the honour of passing a bouquet of flowers to Raymond Poincaré, Président de la République, in front of the new tramway station. This simple ceremony marked a proud day for Paul Desourteaux.

Just eleven months later, the clouds of war descended over Europe. Paul was mobilised, serving as a medic until finally returning to Oradour in December 1919, by which time he had been awarded the title Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur by presidential decree.

While Paul was away, a replacement mayor was found in Joseph Beau, originally a sabotier (clog maker and seller) who had taken up the business of running a grocery store as well as printing and selling photographs of the town as postcards. Due to family responsibilities, Beau had not been mobilised and had been elected as a socialist councillor, on the opposition Section française de l’Internationale ouvrière (SFIO) list. As acting mayor he proved extremely popular. In the 1919 elections, Beau’s socialist list overwhelmingly won the local elections taking all but one seat on the council – in which Paul Desourteaux would sit in opposition. Socialists winning seats on the municipal council was nothing new as they had made gains since winning their first in 1908, and theirs was a restrained socialism, one that fitted the moment and ‘mixed pacifism, the defence of rural interests, secularism and anticlericalism’.5 Desourteaux’s republicanism – nationalist with a view to defending the status quo in society – felt outdated. The election of 1919 was, however, the first time the town had elected a socialist mayor with a majority.

Despite the political misalignments and clash in personalities between Joseph Beau and Paul Desourteaux, the men maintained a civil relationship while carrying out their municipal responsibilities, which were functional rather than overly political in nature. They did their work in much the same way as each other, displaying the utmost care for their community and attention to detail, though Beau would later prove to be more responsive to newcomers and refugees settling in the village. That the two men did not much like each other may have resulted from their differing backgrounds:6 Beau was an artisan and keenly socialist, Desourteaux from a line of almost hereditary mayoral stock. It was only when a personal line was crossed that their relationship broke down further. In late 1924, Beau’s 20-year-old daughter Alice announced that she was pregnant. The father of the child was the eldest of Paul Desourteaux’s four sons, 20-year-old Emile. Up until that point the romance had been kept secret.7

Despite the couple’s love for each other, Paul Desourteaux was unable to accept not only that his son had embarked on the affair, but that his political rival’s daughter would be bearing his grandchild out of wedlock. The pair, it was decided, would have to marry as soon as Emile reached the age of 21, the age of majority. The baby boy, named André, was born in August 1925 and the pair married in Limoges in February 1926, less than a month after Emile turned 21. That the union of two of the most influential families in Oradour took place in Limoges, away from the eyes of the villagers, speaks volumes for how the Desourteaux parents felt. A Desourteaux wedding should have been an event for the whole village to enjoy but the union spelt shame. Emile was cut adrift from the family and he and Alice settled in Limoges, where they stayed until André was 7 and the first of his two sisters was born. As if to add insult to injury, in 1925, Desourteaux lost his seat on the municipal council. It would take four years for him to regain it.

The Glove-makers

In 1911, the supply of a station on the electric tram network that covered the Haute-Vienne provided the village of Oradour, the heart of the surrounding communities, with a vital artery. The city of Limoges lay just 20km further east. The Radounauds could live from the land without being isolated from the outside world. Oradour became a commuter village for workers in Limoges, and trams in both directions were routinely full. Many inhabitants of the bourg either worked in the city or went there to sell goods. At weekends, people came from Limoges to shop, relax or fish. Many came to dine in the Hôtel Milord where tête de veau (calf’s head) was a speciality.

Jean Hébras was a former farm labourer who served in the First World War. After sustaining an injury in Champagne in September 1915, he was taken prisoner the following December. In August 1918, he finally returned to the farm and married Marie, his employer’s daughter. The couple lived in the northern half of the Haute-Vienne before moving to Oradour in 1925. Jean, who had trained as an engineer, was offered a new job heading up a team looking after the upkeep of the electric tramway. The couple had two daughters, 6-year-old Odette and 3-year-old Georgette.

In the first instance, the family rented the same apartment that had been occupied by Marcelin Chalard, Jean’s predecessor as chef d’équipe, who had been reassigned to Limoges. The apartment was just big enough for the family of four. The couple found it hard to settle in and make friends because of the significant variations in the local patois. Theirs derived from the old northern language, the langue d’oïl, while the dialect used in Oradour-sur-Glane, just 40km further south, had emerged from the langue d’oc, the language of the south from which the name of the Languedoc region derived. The family did all it could to establish itself in the Radounaud