Evening star., 1944-09-06
BY EDWARD KENNEDY.

NTOVtHV SCOIy o. N0<s HQteJ
= BY EDWARD KENNEDY.
Associated Press War correspondent.
wORADOUR-SUR France,
Sept. / Delayed) .-Oradour is q
ghastly villsge Of charred and tot
tering walls set In the midst of q
Dvely rolling countryside. It has
no inhabitants because on another
sunny Saturday afternoon just IL
weeks ago the Germans burned the
Village and its population.
According to second hand inf6r-
nation available as I visited the
scene, between 1900 and 1,5O0 per-
Sbns, most of them women and chill
dren, were locked in the village
church. in the school and in houses.
and perished in flames. 1t is said
only II escaped. 10 Of these now be-
Ing In mental institutions.
(The French Press Service in
London in reporting the incident
soon after it occurred said that
nearly 800 persons had died, with
only seven or eight surviving. All
available reports in any case
agree that hardly any one was
sparedD
Oradour is II miles west Of
Limoges and it would have been
difficult to 1nd a more tranquil
or prettier village anywhere. 1t
stood on a side road beside the
little River Glane, scarcely more
than IL feet wide with trees lining
its banks as 1t makes Its way
through the valley.
Town Full Of Refugees.
That is why Oradour was swollen
with refugees, especially children.
Many mothers from Paris and other
cities in danger Of being bombed
came with their children to pass
the summer. Other families placed
their children to board at homes
in the village.
Oradour was swollen also by many
persons from Limoges who had BIZ
cycled out to spend Saturday after
noon in the country. The normal
population Is about 800. No one
knows exactly how many persons
were in the village on the day of its
doom, June 10, but it Is known that
the number was between 1900 and
l,500.
Here is what happened that day,
according to the story agreed on by
eyewitnesses.
In the late hours of the afternoon
q battalion of the Das Reich SIS
Elite Guard division Unexpectedly
appeared and took positions on all
roads leading into the village, block
ing them by setting up machine
guns.
Troops Enter Town.
Troops then entered the town and
ordered all women and children to
60 into the church, all men into Ger
tain specified houses. This caused
no great alarm. At first it was be-
heved the Germans were merely
searching for Maquisards.
About 600 women and children
crowded into the church, a hand
some stone Romanesque structure in
the shape of cross of four equal
arms. Some wheeled their babies in
perambulators. Other women and
children who could not be squeezed
into the church were ordered into
the school adjacent to 1t.
The Germans then locked the
doors OF the church and school and
the houses into which the men had
been herded.
At a given command the Ger
mans suddenly opened fire with
machine guns. rifles and machine
pistols on all the huddled groups.
Weapons were thrust into win
dows and the occupants of the struc-
lures were moved down Men in the
houses were shot mainly in the
legs and sent sprawling across the
floors with blood streaming from
their wounds.
Fire Through Windows.
The Germans mounted improvised
ladders to fire through the church
windows at the women and children
packed there.
The cracking of the shots was
accompanied by the terrified
screams of women and children,
the helpless crying of babies and
the groans of wounded men.
Then the Germans hurled
phosphorus grenades through the
windows and soon the whole village
was huge bonfire with a great
pail OF black smoke ascending
from it.
The SIS battalion withdrew to the
outskirts of the community. shoot
Ing and killing some men who had
broken from the houses and were
attempting to run into the fields.
There are bloodstains on the
walls and floors of the wrecked
church, school and houses. All the
bodies later were collected and
buried in common graves.
The phosphorus grenades gen.
Grated such heat that crucifixes and
other metal fixtures of the church
melted and poured in rivulets over
the floor, then hardened. Statues
still stand in wall inches, but are
charred and broken. The affairs are
black and Clipped.
Women Died Hugging Children.
Some women died huggine chill
dren to their breasts. Other infants
died in their baby carriages, the
twisted steel wreckages of. which
are still in the church.
These details came from the seven
survivors who are sane. Their ac-
counts were gathered by Comman-
dant Marcel, chief of the French
Forces of the Interior of the Limoges
region, and supported by photos
taken of the bodies before burial.
I did not talk to the survivors
because they we're not available
when our party of correspondents
passed through. But I talked to
farmers living Just outside the viii
lage and they corroborated the
account. They told how they saw
the fire and smoke, but were unable
to approach the village because of
the German machine guns.
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