Thursday, November 17, 2011
Oradour sur Glane
Another day to work and learn.
I have 12 more items listed on ebay - all books.
One engrossed me and moved me and inspired me to learn more.
So close to remembrance Sunday this story has filled my mind.
Have you heard of Oradour sur Glane in France?
Like me, you may have a heard a little......people locked in a church which was set on fire.
This village was attacked by a group of German SS men with anger and evil in their hearts....I so want to believe that such Germans were really a minority.
One of their leaders was missing, captured by the resistance in the village of Oradour - so Oradour had to be destroyed.
The wrong Oradour, as it turned out.
I learned so much from the book.
At the end of the book was a list of the dead - "how many more pages must I turn to get to the end of the list?" I wondered.
642 people lost their lives - most never actually identified.
And every building was destroyed too.
The ruins remain, preserved as museum and memorial, alongside a new village.
I feel I would like to go - to share in the past with those people and to mourn for all. It would be a chance to send out aspirations of hope for a world where such a thing could not happen again.
So sorry, world - it keeps on happening somewhere, in some form or other.
That is the doctor's car in the top picture, still in the square, left just as it was after the dead doctor had been pulled from it.
I have 12 more items listed on ebay - all books.
One engrossed me and moved me and inspired me to learn more.
So close to remembrance Sunday this story has filled my mind.
Have you heard of Oradour sur Glane in France?
Like me, you may have a heard a little......people locked in a church which was set on fire.
This village was attacked by a group of German SS men with anger and evil in their hearts....I so want to believe that such Germans were really a minority.
One of their leaders was missing, captured by the resistance in the village of Oradour - so Oradour had to be destroyed.
The wrong Oradour, as it turned out.
I learned so much from the book.
At the end of the book was a list of the dead - "how many more pages must I turn to get to the end of the list?" I wondered.
642 people lost their lives - most never actually identified.
And every building was destroyed too.
The ruins remain, preserved as museum and memorial, alongside a new village.
I feel I would like to go - to share in the past with those people and to mourn for all. It would be a chance to send out aspirations of hope for a world where such a thing could not happen again.
So sorry, world - it keeps on happening somewhere, in some form or other.
