A visit to Oradour-sur-Glane will move you to tears but you should go anyway

February 5, 2020

Most of the blogs we write about visiting France describe the abundant charm, culture and stunning sights this beautiful country has to offer but today we want to share a more somber visit with you.

We recently went to an early morning meeting in Poitiers and decided to travel down the night before in our motorhome. On looking at the map to identify a suitable overnight halt, we realised we were not far from a village we had read about and felt compelled to visit.

On 10th June 1944, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne, which was in Nazi-occupied France at the time, 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 be maintained as a permanent memorial and museum. Words can’t really describe the emotion that visiting this village provoked and it affected us much more than we were expecting. It is almost impossible to imagine how this could have happened in Europe, just 75 years ago.

The tale of what happened that terrible day is well told at The Memorial Centre and all the practical information you need to plan a visit can be found here.

The new village is adjacent to the old village/memorial centre and you can stay there free of charge in a pleasant “Aire de Camping Car”. The town has shops, boulangeries and restaurants too so it is a convenient place to fix yourself a stiff drink and spend a night after your visit.

This visit may not sound like a jolly tourist attraction and it is not. It will shock you, move you and leave you in a very somber mood but we think anyone that can go and see it should.