![]() ![]() In 2012, the courts put the entire village up for auction, a bargain picked up for half a million Euros (the price of a nice-sized house today) by Yoo Byung-eun, a controversial South Korean photographer-cum-millionaire evangelist who would later be implicated in the Sewol affair, a ferry accident that killed more than 300 people. It's pleasant rural setting, combined with rumours of hidden treasure, have always made Courbefy a bit tempting. They sold it in 2003, and it was bought and sold again.Īfter that checkered history you'd expect people to stay away from the accursed village, but no. Two decades later, the development was again sold and turned into a rural 'gite', a type of accommodation. In the 1970s, a developer built rental houses here but resold his property to a Parisian. Once a medieval fortress, Courbefy underwent a series of failed development efforts. Its claim to fame: it was bought at auction. Not far from Oradour is another well-known French abandoned village – Courbefy, whose ups and downs are extensively documented. It is a national monument, and other than mowing the lawns and reinforcing some of the ruined buildings, it has been left as it emerged on that warm June day in 1944. The old Oradour is now known as the Village des Martyrs, or martyrs' village, a symbol to the barbarism of the Nazi regime. That name goes to the new village built nearby. These days the ruined village is no longer called Oradour-sur-Glane. In one historian's explanation, they chose Oradour because it lacked a Resistance cell. The single Nazi soldier to be tracked down for this massacre died in Berlin in 2007 without ever explaining why this village was chosen, or why everyone was killed, including women and children. Why was this peaceful village, in no way a military target, attacked? Why were the women and children executed? Yet Oradour-sur-Glane's destruction remains mysterious. Worth visiting in Oradour is the House of Memories (site in French only). ![]() It has remained untouched since 1944 and despite the many visitors who make the pilgrimage here, it appears as it is: an abandoned French village, frozen in time. A visit is heartbreaking and heavy, making us wonder how such evil emerges. Auto mobile carcasses are scattered here and there, rusty from their long sleep. Today, th e main street of Oradour-sur-Glane remains quiet, entombed in the silence that has reigned since its inhabitants were massacred. The soldiers then set fire to the rest of the village, perhaps hoping in some deranged way to erase the signs of their crimes. In less than an afternoon, 642 men, women and children were murdered. Fire broke out, and those captives who were not burned alive were later machine-gunned. The soldiers set off an explosion in the church, which had been filled with straw. Then the massacre of the women and children began. Once the men had fallen, they were covered with straw and set on fire. Outside, they lined up the men by threes and began to shoot. The SS sent the women and children into the church. They asked the mayor for hostages: he said No. The Division's Das Reich battalion first circled the village, and then rounded up its inhabitants on the main square. S uddenly, in the quiet heat of early afternoon, the sound of motors broke the heavy air of Oradour. Made up of veterans of the Eastern Front, they were no strangers to violence or brutality or terror. Its mission was to destroy the ongoing Resistance. It was 10 June 1944, four days after the Allied landing in Normandy.Īn elite group of soldiers stationed in southern France, the SS Panzer Division Das Reich, set out northwards. ![]() Oradour-sur-Glane: wanton destruction or planned terror?Īny exploration of abandoned villages in France would have to start here, in Oradour-sur-Glane, in the lush, rolling countryside of the Haute-Vienne. ![]() Yet we perversely rejoice in that thrill, not because we like it but because we are thirsty for historical significance, have a biochemical reaction to the lingering darkness, or because of simple curiosity.įrance, so filled with historical places, is bound to have a multitude of these. Walking through abandoned streets and buildings can be chilling, the heavy memories of the past clinging to sidewalks and walls. And sometimes, nearly unspeakable tragedy. Why did these places, once thriving, empty out? Mostly because of war, displacement for development or disease. Because they are living history, a tangible memory of tragedy and horrors past, events we must remember, if only never to repeat them again. ![]()
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