Hébras, Robert / Desouteaux, André.

The Slaughter of Our Village.

Saint-Maur, Les Chemins de la Mémoire, 2001. 21 cm x 29.7 cm. 224 pages. Abundantly illustrated with black and white photographs. Original Softcover. As New condition with only minor signs of external wear.

Includes for example the following chapters: The slaughter of our village / Oradour-sur-Glane- Scenes of Life- 1936-1939 / Trades and crafts in Oradour before the tragedy / Oradour-sur-Glane on the eve of the 10th June 9144 / The tragedy of the 10th June 1944 / The Das Reich Division / My own personal experience of the tragedy / The reconstitution of the tragedy from witnesses’ accounts and from the enquiry that followed the events / The Bordeaux trial 1953 / The six who escaped from the tragedy / Reflections on the possible causes of the massacre / The attack in Saint-Junien / The Gerlacht affair / The Limoges trial / The victims of the massacre etc.

Robert Hébras and André Desourteaux both spent their youth in Oradour-sur-Glane. The former was born there; the latter, the grandson of two former mayors, came there immediately after his birth. All the first part of this work deals with the childhood memories of Robert Hébras, one of the five who escaped from the Laudy barn. He recalls the terrible hours of the massacre and the trails which followed.

André Desourteaux, who was in Limoges on the 10th June 1944, discovered the smoking ruins of his village the following morning. All his loved ones perished in the tragedy. Since that sinister day, he has sought out and assembled all the documents that were published about this event in order to create a real memorial which he wishes to leave to his children and all those whose lives were touched by this drama. He has therefore patiently established a complete list of all the victims. His work appears in the body of this book. (Taken from notes)

For the thousands of visitors who discover its ruins, Oradour-sur-Glane will remain the frozen image of death, of the horror of war in the absolute, when man abandons himself without remorse to the savagery of his hatred. For Robert Hébras and André Desourteaux, who lost in this tragedy almost all their loved ones, Oradour-sur-Glane is to remain, despite everything, the living village of their childhood and their adolescence. In these pages, Robert Hébras, a survivor of the massacre, finds again familiar faces, most intimate memories, the everyday worries and the festuve days of a time gone forever, and retraces, hour by hour, minute by minute, that day of the 10th June 1944 which toppled into a tragic eternity that quiet Limousine village.

Both men try to understand, finally, what happened, and why there were those 644 victims whose executions were never punished. A book by two children of Oradour as a tribute to all the victims of the tragedy. (From cover notes)

On 10 June 1944, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 642 of its inhabitants, including women and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company.
A new village was built nearby after the war, but President Charles de Gaulle ordered the original maintained as a permanent memorial and museum. (Wikipedia)

• Keywords: Biographies and Memoirs · Biography · History · History of France · Illustrated · Massacres · Photographs · Tragedy · World War II · World War Two · World War, 1939-1945
• Language: English
• ISBN: 2847021809
• Inventory Number: 200402AB

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