Village of Death: Oradour-sur-Glane 1944

Funding for this program provided by... Additional support for this film is provided by... Roughly four hours south of Paris is a region of France framed by rolling hills and pastoral countryside.

Generations have farmed these lands where fields seem endless, except for sporadic small villages lorded over by centuries-old church steeples.

[ Bell tolls in distance ] Nestled among these bucolic golden fields is one small community that carries visitors back to the true horrors of war.

A silent hamlet is frozen in the year 1944, a small village where life came to a swift and horrific end one summer's day.

[ Speaking French ] Frenchman Robert Hebras is a survivor of one of the worst atrocities of World War II.

On June 10, 1944, German soldiers arrived at the outskirts of his small 1,000-year-old French village of Oradour-sur-Glane.

They appeared with one purpose -- to murder all who lived in this peaceful place and burn their hamlet to the ground.

18-year-old Robert Hebras was one of just six to escape the massacre of his village.

He has spent his life telling his story to those who will listen.

[ Speaking French ] We lived here.

It was very small.

There was a kitchen all the way in the back.

Where the window is?

Yes, the sink was over there.

Today, Robert's granddaughter, Agathe, preserves the story of Oradour for new generations.

Just after the end of World War II in Europe, French leader Charles de Gaulle visited Oradour-sur-Glane.

De Gaulle ordered that the village be preserved forever in its destroyed state so that the alarming visuals of what happened here would never fade away.

These are the faces of the 643 who were massacred.

The local mechanic, a baker, a seamstress, and a caf worker.

Farmers, teachers, schoolchildren, and babies.

Village elders, Mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters.

This small hamlet found itself in the wrong place at the wrong time in June of 1944.

[ Birds chirping ] This region of France is beautiful.

Forests, rivers, streams, and dirt roads complete the mosaic.

Oradour-sur-Glane is that image when you picture a typical French village in the countryside.

Those who lived here in early June of 1944 handled their daily affairs as World War II raged in other parts of Europe.

Centuries-old Oradour-sur-Glane is walkable from one end to the other in 10 minutes.

This area had largely escaped the devastation of the current war.

The closest German-controlled town in this part of Central France was Limoges, roughly 15 miles northwest.

Trolley tracks connected Oradour-sur-Glane and the town.

While it wasn't a battle zone, Oradour-sur-Glane was in the middle of French Resistance activity in the region.

That was one reason why the Germans didn't visit the village too often.

The Resistance, often referred to in French as the Maquis, wasn't active in Oradour itself, but it was positioned in nearby forests, hills, and larger towns in the region, ready to ambush German troops.

[ Cannons firing ] [ Gunfire ] H-hour, and the enemy's hedgehog defenses are ahead.

This is the supreme moment of invasion.

You are about to embark upon the great crusade.

Shock troops move in for the beach assault!

The eyes of the world are upon you.

[ Gunfire ] Everything changed in Central France when the Allies landed on the Normandy coast, across the English Channel from Great Britain, roughly 300 miles from Oradour-sur-Glane.

Operation Overlord, D-Day had happened on June 6th, 1944.

That give a boost.

The news went across the country really quick -- "The Allies have landed to the north.

Liberation is on its way."

The invasion surged farther inland.

The landing of over 150,000 troops in Normandy potentially meant the beginning of the end of German occupation in France.

At least that's what French citizens thought, including those living in tiny Oradour-sur-Glane.

[ Speaking French ] For the people in the village, the war was over.

The landings had taken place, and we didn't think there were any more German troops.

So for the people of Oradour, the war was over.

As the Allies gained a foothold in France, the call went out from Allied Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower for the French Resistance to join the fight en masse.

People of Western Europe, the hour of your liberation is approaching.

To members of resistance movements, follow the instructions you have received.

Great battles lie ahead.

Together, we shall achieve victory.

German divisions were now headed across Europe to counterattack the landings in Normandy.

Resistance units were called on to sabotage their movements, everything from blowing up bridges and communication lines to ambushing German convoys and killing Nazi officers and troops.

They did significantly help the Allies in defeating fascism.

The French Resistance actually probably played a -- the most important role in terms of its psychological impact on the French people themselves.

The French Resistance fought back against occupation and Nazism, and, in some cases, were very effective and gave the French, or rather restored, an enormous amount of pride to the French people towards the end of the Second World War.

Had there been no French Resistance, the French would look back today on a terrible, dark period in their country's history in which many people collaborated, in which they were humiliated, in which terrible stains on their reputation were created.

[ Speaking French ] Could we have defeated the Nazis without the French Resistance?

Absolutely.

Were they something of a sideshow?

Have people exaggerated their importance?

Yes.

But, nonetheless, there were a lot of very brave, brave people who gave their lives in resisting pure evil, and that's not to be forgotten.

French Resistance efforts following D-Day proved to be a significant thorn in the side of German divisions now driving to the Normandy coast.

Central France and the road to Limoges were significant routes for the Germans to get to Northwestern France, looking to stop the Allied advance.

German generals knew any delays in dealing with the French Resistance or partisan activity along the way had to be addressed.

In the region around Limoges, the Resistance was active, hidden in thick forests and scattered among the villages of France.

The threat of ambush was everywhere.

German leaders devised a sadistic plan to discourage such activity once and for all.

Unfortunately for the quiet village of Oradour-sur-Glane, the plan to demoralize and punish the French Resistance, or Maquis, in June of 1944 involved them.

[ Gunfire ] The idea was to send a brutal message to the Resistance.

German leadership decided on an out-of-the-way location where their prey would not expect their arrival.

A setting that would not attract attention from the outside world.

A place in Central France where the Resistance would get the cruel message via word of mouth, an area like Oradour, not shaken by war.

One of the Germans' top S.S. commanders, Major Adolf Diekmann, was assigned the task of destroying Oradour-sur-Glane by 2nd S.S. Panzer Division commander Heinrich Lammerding.

Diekmann's close friend in the division, Commander Helmut Kampfe, had recently been captured and executed by the Resistance.

There had been talk he was being held in Oradour-sur-Glane, but that was not true.

Plans were finalized in this hotel in Limoges.

Diekmann was out for blood and payback.

Oradour-sur-Glane was circled on the map.

[ Clock ticking ] How the small village of Oradour-sur-Glane became ground zero for retaliation is considered somewhat random.

Oradour-sur-Glane was certainly the perfect location to send the message to the Resistance that civilians would pay the price for the Maquis's deadly ambushes.

The German 2nd S.S. Division, also known as the Das Reich, was on its way to Normandy to counterattack, but first they were ordered to deal with the French partisans.

The German division had been stationed in the country since the beginning of the year.

By 1944, it's reaching a crescendo and so is their savagery.

German leadership in this part of France told the 2nd S.S. Division to quickly deal with the resistance in Central France before leaving for Normandy.

In the town of Tulle, 70 miles southeast of Oradour-sur-Glane, partisans and Maquis had attacked German troops.

German retribution in Tulle came on June 7th and 8th.

The actions of the 2nd S.S. Division were swift and deadly.

[ Clock ticking ] Word of the Tulle massacre hadn't reached a quiet and peaceful Oradour-sur-Glane.

On June 10th, just as the unsuspecting residents of the village began to sit down for their midday meal, the German 2nd S.S. Division arrived.

[ Clock ticking ] On that beautiful June day in 1944, Robert Hebras was relaxing in the hamlet.

[ Speaking French ] On that Saturday, I was happy to have extra time off because we were still working six days a week.

Like all mechanics, we were pretty much working for the German Army.

In the afternoon, there was an altercation between my garage supervisor and a German soldier.

But I had left early to catch my trolley.

[ Speaking French ] I went out into the street, and that's when my friend Marshall spotted me.

He lived at the top of the village, and we both found ourselves on the side of the road, chatting about this and that.

We were talking about soccer.

And that's when we heard a loud noise.

It was a peculiar sound.

We saw dust at the turn and two tracked vehicles approaching.

The 4th S.S. Panzergrenadier Regiment, part of the Das Reich Division, approached the village from the south.

The German troops arrived in half-tracks, trucks, and lorries, carrying roughly 200 soldiers.

[ Speaking French ] I was talking here with my friend when we heard a loud noise, and then we looked down at the bend over there.

We saw two tracked vehicles approaching.

I had never seen vehicles like that.

They passed in front of us.

Oradour residents, as well as six bicyclists who had just happened to be riding through the village that day, had no idea what awaited them.

A significant part of the German S.S. Das Reich Division's plan for Oradour-sur-Glane involved keeping all of the people in the village calm.

The Germans' demeanor remained docile as more S.S. troops filtered into the village under Adolf Diekmann's command.

There were soldiers inside, and since it was four days after the D-Day landing, I told my friend, "Don't worry.

They are just heading to Normandy.

They are passing by."

But then, they stopped at the end of the street.

Oradour was finally sealed off from escape.

The soldiers were spreading out all around the village, and two soldiers set out to gather more people.

The two of us were here, talking.

I saw some friends over there, and I approached them.

There was a soldier with his foot on the curb over there.

He had a rifle that was bigger than him.

And the pastry chef asked him, "Can I go inside to check?

My cakes are going to burn."

[ Speaking French ] The soldier replied in French but with an accent, "Don't worry.

We'll take care of it."

[ Speaking French ] We did not think there was any danger.

We didn't know that, the day before, 99 men had been hanged by the same division in Tulle.

[ Clock ticking ] Around 2:00 p.m. on a picturesque Saturday, June 10, 1944, Adolf Diekmann's S.S. troops began to size up the local population.

Where were all the men located in the hamlet?

Where could all the women and children be found in Oradour?

[ Clock ticking ] In the heat of the mid-afternoon, 2nd S.S.

Commander Adolf Diekmann began to implement his plan for Oradour-sur-Glane.

[ Speaking French ] I believed they were going to ask us for our identification papers.

I'd left my papers at home.

"I don't live very far away, so I'll go fetch my papers if they ask for them."

Nobody thought we were going to die.

We were in a group, and I was with my friends, talking about what we were going to do on Sunday.

[ Speaking French ] When the Nazis arrived, there was already a crowd descending, all people from the village.

I joined all the villagers who were there, including my mother and my older sister, because my younger sister was at school.

There were already at least 50 people gathered.

In the upper part of the village, there was one person who was paralyzed.

They killed him in his bed.

[ Clock ticking ] None of the roughly 650 people in Oradour-sur-Glane, forced to gather that afternoon in the village's main fairground, had any thoughts that they were about to be murdered.

However, the tension and agitation level of the German S.S. troops was undoubtedly rising.

[ Speaking French ] At one point, a soldier approached.

He asked for the mayor.

The mayor comes forward, and the soldier asks him to follow.

They went in the direction towards the town hall, and when the mayor came back, he was a bit agitated.

He didn't say anything.

And then a soldier comes and he says, "There are weapons in the village.

We are going to search for them.

Those who are not involved will be released."

[ Speaking French ] It didn't take long, so not much time passed.

We stayed there for at least three quarters of an hour, talking and moving around.

At one point, three or four soldiers passed through the group.

We men were made to stand on the sidewalk here, and the women, they were by the car for a few moments.

We still didn't know why the Germans were here.

Then the women left.

I saw my mother turn around.

The soldiers didn't shout.

They were very -- you can't say courteous, but they were not agitated like you sometimes see in movies where soldiers shout and chase after people.

That wasn't the case here.

[ Speaking French ] There were no gunshots fired.

Nothing.

Us men were made to stand on the sidewalk here, and we were placed in rows of three, facing the wall.

Up to that wall right there?

There were about 70 men, and we were facing the wall.

[ Speaking French ] I think they intended to execute us right there on the fairgrounds, but then they must have thought it would make too much of a mess with the blood and everything.

Teenager Robert Hebras, and roughly 190 men in the village were moved to six separate barns, sheds, and garages, none within eyesight of each other.

[ Speaking French ] We sat in the hay because it was hot.

There were three or four of us, and we were talking about soccer.

The German plan to completely wipe the village of Oradour-sur-Glane off the map and deliver a message to the resistance was underway.

[ Speaking French ] We had sat down, and we saw the S.S. Schutzstaffel setting up their machine guns.

There were two soldiers with machine guns, two soldiers with ammunition belts, and a fifth one who was probably an officer.

The officer went around the group, and when he reached our location, he signaled for us to stand up.

That's what we did.

We stood up.

[ Speaking French ] The women had left.

I looked to see if I could spot them at the bottom of the village, but there was no one there.

They were apparently in the church at the time.

By late afternoon, 450 women and children were now packed into the church under guard.

Roughly 200 men were in various other locations around Oradour-sur-Glane.

That's when the violence in this small French village began.

[ Speaking French ] It was hot.

Like everyone else, we sat in the hay and waited.

A soldier went around our group.

When he reached our location, he signaled to us, so we stood up.

By the time he returned to the entrance of the barn, there was a detonation in the village, and the shooting began.

[ Machine-gun fire ] [ Machine-gun fire ] [ Speaking French ] It was a grenade to signal everyone because the executions started.

At the same time, soldiers in front of the groups began firing.

[ Speaking French ] I found myself under the other men.

I'm injured, but not seriously.

I don't lose consciousness.

The soldiers continued to shoot, so I tried to slip even deeper.

[ Machine-gun fire ] One of those survivors was teenager Robert Hebras, who ended up buried below the bodies of those shot in his barn.

[ Speaking French ] The shooting stops.

Then the soldiers climb onto the bodies, and anyone with a glimmer of life, they finish them off with a shot to the head.

[ Gunshot ] [ Speaking French ] I was covered in a pile of boots, and I continued to hide.

[ Speaking French ] I knew my father was outside somewhere, and I was convinced that they had taken the women and children out of the village so they wouldn't witness the execution of the men.

What happened to the 450 women and children driven into the centuries-old church in Oradour-sur-Glane is almost beyond description.

First, an explosion was set off inside the church, creating a thick cloud of black smoke.

That was followed by German machine-gun fire and then hand grenades thrown into the house of worship.

While this was happening, young Robert Hebras was planning his escape.

They covered everyone with hay, and then the soldiers left.

We heard them going away, the sounds of boots getting farther away.

So I think to myself, "I'll wait here, and, at night, I'll leave."

Back then, it got dark at 10:30, so I thought, "I'll leave when it gets dark."

But they come back.

We heard the sound of the boots coming.

They came back, and that's when they set fire.

There was a ladder, and one of the soldiers climbed up and lit a match to set the logs on fire.

He lit one match, then another.

When he was on the ladder.

I could have touched his helmet, but it was pitch black.

They set fire to the hay, and I hear the fire spreading.

And then I didn't have a choice anymore.

Either I burn alive or I go out and get shot by the soldiers.

So I made a quick decision.

At that moment, I heard people speaking French, and I could tell they were Limousins.

I opened the door, and at the back of the stable, I saw a shadow, and I was afraid it might be a soldier.

But at the time, I was scared, so I went out.

As I emerged, the soldiers were gone.

Robert Hebras's father managed to evade the tragedy by being a short distance from the village on a work trip.

The two would meet up later in the day.

[ Speaking French ] My father had already arrived at my sister's.

I explained what had happened.

I said, "The women must be somewhere."

So he took his bicycle, went to Oradour, and went to the church.

He saw what had happened.

When he came back, he said to me, "Your mother and your sisters were burned in the church."

That's where the real tragedy happened.

[ Speaking French ] I'm a bit uncomfortable entering the church.

There weren't many bodies because, in the church, only ashes and bones were found.

[ Speaking French ] Visitors can't imagine.

I wasn't there, but I can imagine how the women must have agonized when climbing those stairs, entering the church with their babies and strollers.

I imagine it wasn't easy.

Maybe some soldiers helped them.

No one can say.

[ Speaking French ] But afterward, when you are together, what happens?

Between the moment when I'm alone and when I came out of the door, I see no one.

Then I went back to the bodies in the smoke.

I opened the stable door in the back, and there's someone who scared me.

I quickly closed the door and went to hide in a pigsty.

I always wondered my mom, who walked with difficulty, was sick, and had a heart problem, I wonder how she and the others managed to get inside.

450 inside the church.

How could they all fit?

Because today the church is empty.

But back then, there were pews, chairs.

There were two priests in Oradour.

There was the town's priest and the Lorraine priest, who was a refugee here.

Among the witnesses who survived the tragedy, nobody saw the priest.

Yet at the time, they were Cossacks, which would have been noticeable.

If the priests had been in the church, they would have led prayers.

They would have asked the women and children to pray.

Of the 643 residents of Oradour-sur-Glane who were now dead, 247 of them were women and another 205 were children.

All those dead in the church were burned beyond recognition, thanks to the ensuing fire that raged.

Robert Hebras's mother and two sisters were among the dead.

The Oradour massacre on June 10, 1944, I believe that when the Das Reich unit went into Oradour-sur-Glane, there's obviously -- There's other stuff going around.

There's the -- the kidnapping of a major and the search for weapons and all this and that.

But I think, at the end, the real message of exterminating 643 innocent lives in a few hours on June 10, 1944, was to basically terrorize the Maquis and say, "Look, I'm still king of the castle here.

It's not because we've got a bunch of guys to the north that landed that we ain't going to win this one."

And I think that sent a shock wave across that region, the market to the north, the Maquis to the south, the west and east.

And you got this thing, Oradour, that happens in the middle.

And all of a sudden, you just created this -- this fear.

And I think it was really to mark a point.

Oradour-sur-Glane.

And I think it's just a statement.

Unfortunately, it's a statement that cost lives.

On the night of June 10th, some time after 6:00 p.m., the village was looted and lit on fire by soldiers of the German 2nd S.S. Division.

[ Speaking French ] The next day, I went back to my sister's place, and that's where I learned from my father that they had killed the women and children in the church.

It was so painful that I don't even remember the week that followed.

I don't recall anything that happened.

Following the massacre, residents and aid workers from the region flocked to Oradour-sur-Glane looking for their children and family.

What they found was the smell of burnt flesh, bodies torn to shreds from bullets, and a village burned to the ground.

This was an atrocity on such a scale, it could not be hidden, even though the S.S. made attempts to bury as many bodies as possible before heading on to Normandy.

[ Speaking French ] Does any visitor to Oradour really comprehend what could have happened in the church?

Those approximately 450 women and children who were in the church.

Otherwise, there would have only been the deaths of the men, and the village would have remained.

We would have carried on.

But, for me, the real tragedy is in the church.

[ Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" plays ] Visiting Oradour-sur-Glane today is to witness the results of mass murder.

Civilians caught up in war.

The intensity of evil.

The importance of remembrance and preservation.

The power of education.

Historians have spent a lot of time detailing what happened there, but the horror of it is what came to me.

The details were certainly important, but the mood of that place struck many of us as we walked those grounds.

I think the place where I pretty much lost it was going up... to where the memorial is, and encased in glass... human remains and what looked like a child's hand.

That was the tough part.

That was the real part.

Oradour-sur-Glane villager Robert Hebras, a survivor, is too aware of this story.

[ Speaking French ] Now they call me a survivor, the one who made it.

I am.

That's it.

I am a man, I am a witness.

I am a witness.

[ Speaking French ] For Hebras, it is difficult to walk down these streets where his family and friends were murdered.

Unlike June 10, 1944, there are no screams today.

Just silence.

Decades later, everything remains familiar to Robert.

The opening there is quite large.

What was it?

It used to be a grocery store.

Ah, I see.

So it had a storefront.

[ Speaking French ] There was the kitchen at the back over there, and there were two bedrooms on the second floor.

Is this your bed?

Yes, that's my bed.

Before my little sister was born, I used to sleep there.

There was a wardrobe where my mother used to hide chocolate.

Sometimes I would sneak in and cut a piece of chocolate.

She noticed it, but she didn't say anything.

And behind it, there was a storage area where we kept wood.

And since we heated with wood, my father had to buy wood.

We would unload it here.

Then we had to take it in the wheelbarrow and put it in the storage areas.

And there were one or two rabbits and one or two chickens.

643 residents of Oradour-sur-Glane were dead.

Their faces are forever frozen in time.

Some villagers who were murdered by members of the 4th Grenadier Regiment of the 2nd S.S. Division on June 10, 1944, are buried in the local Oradour-sur-Glane cemetery.

Only 52 of the 643 residents slaughtered were able to be officially identified.

Faces on headstones and memorials represent the rest.

Other very personal reminders of the violence that occurred here are also exposed.

Life in a small village before the Germans arrived.

The mechanic's garage.

The baker's oven.

A sewing machine.

A school.

And an empty church.

The reason why Oradour-sur-Glane was ultimately chosen to be destroyed has been debated ever since June 10, 1944.

The Germans had retribution, and the way they lashed out is to the populace indicates that.

I think many of them, especially the officers, had a good idea "We're losing this war."

But they had a job to do, too, and that's -- the horrific murders that take place en masse is only a reflection of that.

What is certain is that Robert Hebras's French village experienced cruel and savage personal violence seldom seen in World War II, except on the Russian front.

Oradour-sur-Glane was a war crime.

Oradour stands as an Auschwitz, as a Dachau in France.

And I think everybody should visit it at least once just to know what horror war can be.

Walking around the skeletal remains of a town, seeing glimpses of human beings being there, like a sewing machine, a burnt out car, an anvil, a shovel was all -- To me, it was a reminder that human beings were once here, had lives, had dreams, had futures, and all lost in a morning when the Nazis showed up.

It's a place I don't like.

I don't like going in there.

I feel the dread already.

I get emotional, I get shivers.

I'm a dad, and seeing the pictures of those children throws me into a loop.

I can't believe human beings could do that to each other.

And I think that, for General Charles de Gaulle, to preserve that town the way it is preserved was brilliant in that you can't deny it.

It is a memorial.

It is a statement to say, "Never again."

Today, the old Oradour-sur-Glane of 1944 lives on as a ghost village, uninhabited and within eyesight of a modern version of the rural community rebuilt after the war.

The past is always visible to those in the present.

The message is always within eyesight in the old rural French hamlet of Oradour-sur-Glane.

History like this should never repeat itself.

Marie Avril.

Francois Bertrand.

Gisele Lem.

Jean Senon.

Pierre Dupic.

Marcelle Petit.

Jeanine Girard.

Denis Mercier.

Francois Mercier.

Marguerite Barataud.

Olga Lacroix.

Danielle Gaillot.

Hubert Gaillot.

Danielle Bardet.

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