How can the memory of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre be preserved? Robert Hebras died three weeks ago, after a life dedicated recalling the dreadful day of June 10, 1944. Just the ruins remain to bear witness, and the site urgently needs to be restored.
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| Oradour-sur-Glane today |
On June 10, 1944, life came to a halt in Oradour-sur-Glane (Haute-Vienne) in less than three hours. Hundreds of demolished houses, schools, and businesses cover approximately 10 hectares, attesting to the magnitude of the carnage. Nazi soldiers killed 643 women, men, and children. Agathe Hebras is concerned that her grandfather, the last of the survivors, would be forgotten.
Benoît Sadry, head of the national association of Oradour-sur-Glane martyrs' families, also lost a member of his family in the massacre. "What is disturbing now is that these houses are already degraded by approximately 80 years in the open air, without protection. It just takes one of the four walls to collapse to bring the entire structure down. "Idyll," he says. They are requesting immediate action to avoid harsh weather from eroding the stones. "It is the entire that makes sense, it is what allows us to comprehend the scope of the atrocity," Agathe Hebras argues. Now, the church, which is still intact, is the focus of the majority of the state's restoration efforts.