Remains of homes in Oradour -sur-Glane, where inhabitants were massacred and all homes and businesses destroyed by Nazis 70 years ago
It serves as an eerie reminder of the appalling brutality of war, wreaked on the lives of the innocent.
It may have been 70 years since the inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane were massacred and all homes and businesses destroyed, but here in this ghost town near Limoges, France, it is still June 10 1944.
It was on this day that members of the dreaded S.S. stormed the town and lay its residents to waste.
Here in this ghost town near Limoges, France, it is still June 10 1944 - the day it was stormed by the dreaded S.S.
Today Oradour exists as a massive memorial - a chilling time capsule where the burned out homes remain exactly as they were on the day they were torched, and even the car of the mayor still lies rusting in the main street
The men were rounded up and shot in barns, the women were herded into the local church which was set ablaze with hand grenades.
Today Oradour exists as a massive memorial - a chilling time capsule where the burned out homes remain exactly as they were on the day they were torched, and even the car of the mayor still lies rusting in the main street.
Germany's president Joachim Gauck is expected today to make an historic pilgrimage to the town. It will be the first made by a German head of state.
German soldiers killed all 642 inhabitants, including children. The men were rounded up and shot in barns, the women were herded into the local church which was set ablaze with hand grenades
It is thought Oradour was destroyed because of resistance attacks on the division as it moved north. But another theory is that the booty - massive amounts of gold - of Das Reich officers was stolen and they believed the peasants of the village had it
Veterans of the Das Reich division - its members had spent three years murdering civilians on the Russian front - were moving up to the Normandy battlefields to try to counter the Allied invasion forces when they detoured into the sleepy hamlet which had existed for 1,000 years.
It is thought Oradour was destroyed because of resistance attacks on the division as it moved north. But another theory is that the booty - massive amounts of gold - of Das Reich officers was stolen and they believed the peasants of the village had it.
Ironically, many of the soldiers who took part in the massacre were from the Alsace region - the disputed borderland that has changed hands many times between France and Germany down the centuries
The church at the martyr village where women and children were locked up and intentionally set on fire by a SS division. Some 500 burned to death here
Homes and business were all torched by S.S officers, with just shells remaining
Residents were rounded up by German soldiers ostensibly to have their identity papers checked
But the women and children were then locked up in the church while the men were taken to a barn where machine guns awaited
For many years the relatives of victims had opposed any homage to Oradour by a German leader
But today German President Joachim Gauckand, left, with French President Francois Hollande will pay homage to a ceremony commemorating the World War II massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane
Francois Hollande, the French president, will accompany president Gauck on the visit.
For many years the relatives of victims had opposed any homage to Oradour by a German leader.
The two presidents are due to visit the village square where the residents were rounded up by German soldiers ostensibly to have their identity papers checked.
The women and children were then locked up in the church while the men were taken to a barn where machine guns awaited.
Today the town serves as an eerie reminder of the appalling brutality of war, wreaked on the lives of the innocent, and attracts thousands of visitors each year
Prosecutors in Germany are still pondering whether to put on trial seven elderly members of the Das Reich division found alive in Germany
The two presidents will be accompanied by two of the three living survivors -- Robert Hebras, 88 and Jean-Marcel Darthout.
Hebras, who was 19 at the time of the massacre, survived as he was buried under the corpses of others who were machine-gunned.
'I was consumed by hatred and vengeance for a long time,' he said, adding that Gauck's visit came at an opportune time.
'Any earlier would have been too soon. But now we must reconcile with the Germans.'
Prosecutors in Germany are still pondering whether to put on trial seven elderly members of the Das Reich division found alive in Germany.
Culled from DAILY MAIL
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