Martyred Village: Commemorating the 1944 Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane

Among German crimes of the Second World War, the Nazi massacre of 642 men, women, and children at Oradour—sur—Glane on June 10, 1944, is one of the most notorious. On that Saturday afternoon, four days after the Allied landings in Normandy, SS troops encircled the town in the rolling farm country of the Limousin. Soldiers marched the men to nearby barns, lined them up, and shot them. They then locked the women and children in the church, shot them, and set the building and the rest of the t...