Ouradour Sur Glane ( 2012)

[MooN]

Back in September 2012 I made a trip that I had wanted to do for a long time. This Ride report was posted on Maximum bikes and I have resurrected it for this site, as not many of us can actually ride to create any ride reports at the moment. 

10th June 1944. 4 days after the normandy landings & resistance activity in the Limousin region has redoubled in an attempt to prevent german troops moving north to reinforce the front. The 2nd SS panzer division "Das reich" commanded by Adlof Diekerman, harassed by resistance actions, Halts by the small village of Oradour sur Glane. 

Lunch is almost over, the restaurant & café begin to empty as the inhabitants return to their occupations & the children make their way back to school.

14h00; having carefully surrounded the Village, the SS give the order for all inhabitants to gather in the square.

15h00; the villagers are all in the square, & the school children arrive, in rows accompanied by their teachers. The SS have set up macine guns all around the square, facing the people.

15h30; The SS separate the men from the women & children. The women & children are led to the church. The men are divided into groups, which then disperse, at gunpoint to various locations in the village.

16h00; An explosion is heard, at which signal the machine guns open fire on the groups of men. Some men are finished off with a pistol shot to the head, most are not, & the piles of bodies are set alight.

17h00: the SS place a large crate in the centre of the church, from which a number of fuses run. the firing of the fuses provokes a thick toxic smoke & complete panic amongst the women & children who scrabble for the doors. The SS  machine gun anyone appearing near the doors or windows. The fire spreads & the women & children die asphixiated or burned alive. One lone woman survived to tell the tale. Mme Rouffanche. The youngest of the children was 8 days old.

The SS then proceeded to burn any bodies left over, some survivors were thrown down the well & the rest of the village was burned.

That afternoon, the SS murdered 642 people & destroyed 328 buildings.


The village has never been rebuilt. aA new village has grown alongside the old & the ruins have been left untouched. Since 1999 a "centre de la memoire" ( memory centre & museum) has been installed at the entrance to the village.

This is what I wanted to see. 

being something of a technophobe, I tend to still route plan the old fashioned way, & don't have a GPS. I use a K. T. 








Kitchen Table!

+ pencil & paper.

I set off late, due to Madame feeling a bit off, I ran the kids to school for 08:30, swung by the polyclinique to pick up me scan results (sinuses again ) & didn't get away from home 'till about quarter to ten. Not cold & not raining but very overcast. Forcast to improve over the course of the day. Didn't suit up to set off but within 10 minutes needed to here at Jussey, linking the N6 to the N151 

It hammered down for about 5 minutes & then let up, but I was on the N151 & as usual loving every minute of it, as far as Clamecy anyway. After that it gets a bit booring as far as Nevers, then it's just "route express" (dual carriageway) south to Moulins.then a bit more interesting, but not a lot...) from Moilins to Montluçon where I stopped for a late lunch & just stopped at a McGonads for a spicy skank-burger or whatever it was. I was pushing on despite the numerous heavy rain showers, cos I really wanted to get to Oradour in time to do the Museum Visit & then see the ruins. 


I stopped for a ciggy at Gueret, & then attacked the smaller roads up to Le Grand Bourg, it had stopped raining but the roads were still wet
 

I got to Oradour around 4 ish, with just enough time to do the museum & the village if I was quick in the museum...
The Museum doesn't allow pics, so I don't have any. You want to see it? you'll have to go.

The Museum explains more than I really wanted to know about the village, the political situation & so on & so forth, but also in detail what exactly happend on the 10 of June 1944 & goes on to attempt to explain why & what happened afterwards, Historically, to allow the village to remain as it is. Most of the "exhibits" are items that were left in the ruins, but that started to become seriously weatherbeaten & risked being lost entirely. 

The signs & explanations are in numerous languages... German being one of them. (I don't know what to think about that... is that good or bad?)

After the, sobering, museum visit I walked on through to the village itself. I have loads of pics but I won't post them all. It did feel kind of bizarre taking photo's, people died here, it's not just some tourist attraction.

Just a remark I made to myself on leaving the village. I think that Oradour Sur Glane (the old village) is the only village in france where you will not get people say "bonjour", to each other in the street... most will not even make eye contact, be they brits, french or dutch. (I didn't spot any germans)

outside the village

the inscription reads " Ici des hommes firent a leurs meres, et a toutes les femmes, la plus grave injure. Ils n'épargnerent pas les enfants"

my translation: " in this place men made the foulest insult imaginable to their mothers & to all women, They did not spare the children"


As you enter the village, the sign on the gate

This is what the whole thing is about. This must never be forgotten, that men are capable of such atrocity.

the well

In which a number of bodies were found. The inscription reads "here some villagers were buried" (understand buried alive)

" In this place of torture, a group of men were massacred & burned by the Nazis. meditate upon it"

the garage

the cars in the streets 

 

The forge

The pharmacy

"here were found 2 burnt bodies"

the bakers

the butchers

the café "chez Lucien"

at the bottom of the road there is the church.

"in this place hundreds of women & children 
were massacred by the Nazis
you who pass by, be meditative
you who believe, say a prayer
for the victimes & their families"

the bell, melted by the heat of the flames

The youngest child killed was only 8 days old...

 

a quiet walk back to the bike & a quick word with two english guys on BMW F650's headed south, a father & son team who'd stopped by cos the dad's father had been here many years ago & told his son about it, who'd now brought HIS son to see it. 

Have a safe trip through the pyrenees guys. 

I took the road towards Limoges, it was now about 18h00 & I had obviously well timed my arrival on the outskirts of Limoges to coincide with evening rush hour...Still, I knew pretty much where I was going & I found the traffic easy to deal with, as most cars just pull over as the lines slow down, allowing even my fat arse panniers to filter through. I arrived at the Hotel easy enough a little before 7, having stopped for a coffee at a roadside café along the way.

well when I say Hotel...

it's a truck stop, with 6 rooms available. Room, evening meal & breakfast 46€. Well it was clean... ish.

I usually reckon that the food at a truckstop is going to be ok if there's a load of trucks outside at mealtimes. By the time I'd checked in, unpacked & showered there were 70+ semis parked out the back & 4 or 5 jostling for position in the front...

There's no pics of this cos it was a complete free for all  the food was ok, good solid truck stop nosh, the entrée was a buffet so help yourself 

then there was lasagne & salad in portions that I would only feed to large wild animals... actually, come to think of it, I wish I'd have filmed it (with sound), it really was a bit like feeding time at the zoo. There was no way i was going to be able to sit & enjoy a quiet meal with my nose in a book.

however it all seemed fairly good natured & as everyone was sat at long common tables, it seemed somewhat churlish not to just deploy my elbows & join the throng & was soon elbow deep in greasy pasta & knee deep in an animated discussion about french transport politics... of which I have no clue but just tried to avoid being rude about bloody frog truck drivers...

I slept in late & by the time I was ready to go (about 9h30 ish) the parking was empty. The barman who served me coffee & croissant for breakfast said that it was like that every night of the week...

So, Friday morning, only slightly hung over, even at this late hour a fairly thick fog lay over all, so I'd only have wasted time waiting if i'd got up earlier. The first couple of hours of my route were the scenic twisty bits & I didn't want to do that in the fog.

I set off to cover the first 20 or so km before the real fun begins, in the hope the fog would have burnt off by the time I got to St Priest Taurion & turned up back into the hills.

The bridge at St Priest,

further on

oh Borrox (as the japanese say)

well that's put the kybosh on one section then...

ne'er mind, plenty more where that came from

by the time I'd got back to Le Grand Bourg, I felt a bit like I'd been in a washing machine on "spin" cycle...

then the serious stuff started again, the interminable ride home along mile after mile of almost straight a flat roads, the only exception being the 1st section of the D940 from Gueret to genouillac which is superbe, long fast sweepers with good visibility & a good surface  the views dont do it any harm either

Sancerre

a rest stop alongside the Canal laterale a la loire, somewhere south of Cosne sur loire

oh look a boat!

nearly home, my house lies somewhere in the fold of the valley, just this side of the dark hill in the centre & a bit further left

overall distance was 806km & it only rained on the thursday morning.  

 

[Tym]

Cool, love the old quality pics, reminds me of the old days on motorcycle forums.

[Catteeclan]

Well resurrected Chris, remember this the first time round. One of the reasons me and Mandi made the trip.

[XTreme]

That is absolutely amazing Chris!

And I gotta give it to you......this was Dark Motorcycling EIGHT years before the term existed!

You were truly a Pioneer! 

As well as the other thing of course! 

[Pedro]

11 minutes ago, MooN said:

The signs & explanations are in numerous languages... German being one of them. (I don't know what to think about that... is that good or bad?)

...
my translation: " in this place men made the foulest insult imaginable to their mothers & to all women, They did not spare the children"

I think it's good that it is in German, Germany is a neighbour country of France and isn't going anywhere. Like they say, "you shouldn't forget" meaning humanity shouldn't forget, and the insult done by not sparing children was done to their mothers too. It's Germany's history too.

[boboneleg]

I remember this report as well and so inspired by Chris's ride report when me and my mate were on our way to Spain in 2014 we decided to visit the site.

It's a very sombre place to visit and earily quiet but I'm so glad we made the effort to go.   Some pics............

 

 

[XTreme]

4 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

on our way to Spain in 2014

And you didn't come here Bob?

Not everybody ends up hospitalised you know! 

[boboneleg]

1 minute ago, XTreme said:

And you didn't come here Bob?

Not everybody ends up hospitalised you know! 

We only got as far as the Pyrenees, this sort of stuff stopped us a lot of the way .........

[busabeast]

1 hour ago, boboneleg said:

I remember this report as well and so inspired by Chris's ride report when me and my mate were on our way to Spain in 2014 we decided to visit the site.

It's a very sombre place to visit and earily quiet but I'm so glad we made the effort to go.   Some pics............

 

 

Went here with the school in 2000 or so and even to our small minds it was mind blowing, would love to go back at some point