I have subscribed to WWII magazine for some time now and just received the June/July issue in the mail yesterday. The magazine always illustrates how much there is to know about WWII and how much I have to learn. In this outstanding issue (they are always pretty good) they had a story about Oradour-sur-Glane, a village in France that I am sure is familiar to Véronique. In June of 1944 a Battalion from the 2nd SS Panzer Division, Das Reich, rounded up and eventually killed nearly the entire population of the village. The act was bad enough that even the regimental commander and Das Reich commander agreed to court martial the Bn CO, but pragmatism won out and it was never pursued. The village was visited by De Gaul after the area was recaptured and he decreed that it should never be touched as a memorial of what happened. Today one can visit the museum nearby and then walk through the ruins of the town. It is apparently an extremely moving experience. It will have to make my list of things to visit when I get to Europe someday.
Check out the story in WWII Magazine; the whole issue is worth it, too.
With silent reverence,
Todd O.
Yes Todd,
I visited the village in August 2003 during my holiday. I had a very strange sensation .. It seems that we still felt the ashes. but The worst part of visiting these tragic ruins it's the fingernail scratches on the inside of the church door from the women and children inside as they tried to escape. I really felt badly !
http://www.travelpod.com/travelblogphotoal...2/YES/tpod.html
Véronique
I read the article on World War II magazine also, and applaud the French for leaving the village in it's devastated condition as a reminder of the great evil that enveloped Europe in the 20th century. Horrors like this (and even worse) occurred in Belorussia and Ukraine...and in the Pacific islands during WWII and many times over, but were often not reported until after the war ended in 1945. One in particular comes to mind. In late 1943 as the Soviet army began to push the Nazis out of Russia one village at a time, they came upon a horrible scene in one town, where they discovered the corpses of many small children who had been used to provide blood transfusions to wounded german officers. They literally bled them to death. I saw this story on a DVD entitled 'The Road to Berlin.'
This is not something that is easily grasp by a rational human mind, so once again I am glad that there were cameras to witness such events for historical purposes.
Dogdaddy
I haven't had a chance to get into my WWII magazine, but I can't wait !
I love my magazine, the past few issues I've gotten had some really good stuff in them.
Brooke
IIn late 1943 as the Soviet army began to push the Nazis out of Russia one village at a time, they came upon a horrible scene in one town, where they discovered the corpses of many small children who had been used to provide blood transfusions to wounded german officers. They literally bled them to death. I saw this story on a DVD entitled 'The Road to Berlin.'
This is not something that is easily grasp by a rational human mind, so once again I am glad that there were cameras to witness such events for historical purposes.
Dogdaddy
I have planned to visit Oradour in the near future I hope I'll get some time off from work. 
This is very hard what you wrote above dogdaddy, I have 3 kids myself (& 2 Dogs )and only to think someone could do this to an innocent child make me more than angry when I read such story's it sets my teeth on edge, this reminds me of a scene I had 12 years or so ago you know I work as a conductor at the lux railway and I had an Old German in his 70 on board of my train and he had not a valuable ticket for the train Lux - trier the only ticket he got was a war invalid card (valid as ticket in germany) and he behaved like we were still under german occupation.
Misfortune for the old bas...d was that I had read around 6 or 7 books about the annihilation of the jews, gypsies etc.at that time, the last one I've read about this thema was "a girl from schindlers list from Stella Müller-Madej " in that book she described a scene where the germans tossed children from the second floor on the platform of a truck 
.
After that book I had to stop reading them because it realy haunted me and when I had to handle with older germans wich was very common do to my job I always thought maybe he was one of those who did such things and when they behaved like the the old Bas.... I've wrote above then I got very snippy and had not pity to kick 'em out very quick. 
Martin
Hello Martin-
I can imagine that it might be more difficult to forgive when you live in a country that was occupied by the Germans during WWII. I wasn't even born when WWII was being fought, but when you read about it and study the war every day (like most of us here do) these events become very real to you...or at least they seem like that to me. You wonder how anybody could do such things to children! Perhaps forgive is not the right word, but I know we never want to forget such things..
Dogdaddy
