A terrible tale of a French village
The new prime minister of France, Gabriel Attal, has promised to “take care” of Oradour-sur-Glane. The village, in west-central France, was the scene on June 10, 1944, of an infamous Nazi massacre of 643 men, women and children, shot or locked in the local church and burned alive. Only six villagers escaped to tell the tale; the last of them died in 2023. For years Oradour-sur-Glane has been a site where schoolchildren were taken to learn about what France endured during World War Two. Recently the abandoned village has become overgrown with vegetation, but with the eightieth anniversary this summer, the descendants of the victims are making sure they are not forgotten.
