Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre

Eglise Saint-Martin

Here 241women and 205 children of the village were murdered by German SS soldiers on 10th of June 1944. Ici 241 femmes et 205 enfants du village etaient assassiné par des soldats SS Allemands.

The burnt village

Story of decay, abandonment and return.

Household objects and cars

en couleur modeste

in toned down colour

Map / Carte

Map of the destroyed village as it was left by the German soldiers and still is as of today. You enter the village through the museum site on the road to the bottom side of the map D101. On my photo tour of two days I took a left turn at Dennis Wine store to start my photo series at the West entrance of the village direction the D9 to Confolens. The entrance is permanently closed for public and lies just aside the camper parking. From there I walked up to the central fairground where the iconic doctors' car is situated, to continue in a loop to the church at the west entrance (direction Limoges). The small road leading back to the main road was blocked due to restauration works, so I went back over the main street to end up at the fairground again. Despite you might think otherwise, there were a lot of visitors in mid September. I really had to wait long to the able to make my pictures and sometimes it was just impossible to do so without people. On the pictures I have chosen, they however are not disturbing the images and sometimes even essential to it. My editing is carefully chozen to not contradict the theme of a martyr site. So heavy black and whites and toned down colours define my imaging. I had hoped for rain and or dark cloudy days but it was in fact very sunny and warm.