Dr Desourteaux's Car

At around 2pm on the afternoon of Saturday June 10th 1944, around 180 Nazi SS rolled into the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Limousin, France. Much of the surrounding area was active with the Resistance and just the previous day, the SS had hanged 99 suspected Resistance members from lampposts in the town of Tulle. The reason for what took place at Oradour is still not really known, but by 3 o’clock, almost the entire population village had been rounded up on the village green for an identity check, from where 452 women and children were taken down to the church whilst the village was then searched for “arms, ammunition and prohibited merchandise”. The remaining 190 people (mostly men but also a small number of women) were moved to 6 separate buildings around the village.

At about 4pm, a large gas bomb, apparently made out of smoke-screen grenades and intended to asphyxiate the occupants, was placed in the church. It did not work properly when it went off and so the SS had to use machine guns and hand grenades to disable and kill the women and children. After they had 'subdued' all the occupants of the church, the soldiers piled wood on the bodies, many of whom were still alive and set it on fire. Just one lady escaped, by climbing through a window behind the altar and lay partially buried in a garden, between rows of peas, until late the next day when concerned relatives of the villagers, and other locals who had arrived, found her. She had been shot 5 times.

At the same time, the killing of the men began, with the SS machine-gunning the crowded barns, aiming low to disable the men before covering them with straw and setting light to the buildings, burning them to death. Other SS soldiers searched the village and killed anyone they found on the spot, including an infirm old man in his bed and a baby that was cooked in an oven in the bakery. Several more people were killed and their bodies thrown down a well.
The church was kept burning well into the evening by the SS adding wood and every other building in the village was also set alight. Miraculously, there were some other survivors, including 5 of the 6 men who escaped from one of the barns and 3 children who hid in their house until the flames forced them out and were then actually let go by an SS soldier. Another boy, one of the refugees from Lorraine in eastern France, ran away as soon as the Germans had arrived (having experienced them before). He was shot at and pretended to be dead, then escaped into the woods having been let go by a second soldier who found him. Altogether there were about 20 survivors who found their way to the neighbouring villages by various routes.

By 9.30pm, most of the soldiers had left, with just a rearguard of about 2 dozen remaining. Throughout the night, concerned relatives and locals gathered on the outskirts of the village and the SS set alight the final house, in which they had been staying, at around 6am on Sunday 11th June. By late morning, having sorted out all the valuables etc they had looted from the village, the Germans finally left and the locals could make their way into the village where they experienced the full horror and brutality of the massacre.

The original village has been preserved as a memorial, maintained almost exactly as it was left in 1944, and a ‘new’ Oradour-sur-Glane has been built just up the hill from it. Today, it is possible to visit the ‘Centre de la Mémoire’ that has been built just across the road from the original Oradour, as well as the actual village itself, and you can quietly wander around the ruins, seeing the total destruction and feeling the powerful emotions that pervade this ‘martyred village’.

My shot shows the car of the village doctor, Dr Jacques Desourteaux, who had been out on a call when the SS arrived. He returned to the village as the assembly of the population was taking place and parked his car by the village green. His papers were checked and when it was established that he was a resident of Oradour, he joined the other men and his fate was sealed. His car still sits exactly where he left it 70 years ago…....
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