Oradour sur Glane

I have been very busy the past week and I know that I need to write about what we've been up to and tell about our apartment and all that, but I'll have to come back to that in subsequent posts. I would like to chronicle today's events before I forget them. (I haven't even had time for journaling either!)

While things have been very busy for me, the kids don't have much to do. In trying to take advantage of our few free days left before school as well as the sites and attractions of this area, we took a trip today to Oradour sur Glane. It is a small town only about 20 minutes outside of Limoges, called the "martyr village." On June 10, 1944, the Nazis destroyed the village, burned it, and killed all of its inhabitants. The town has been preserved as it was on that day as a memorial to those who died and a reminder to all who see it, the atrocities of the Nazis.

In 1950 or so, they built a wall all around the village to help protect it, so the only way to enter it now is through the visitor's center which is on the opposite side of the road. Then there is a little passageway under the road that leads visitors to the village. Upon reaching the visitor's center, I was told I must have a Health Pass /Pass Sanitaire to enter. Well, I don't have one. But it's not required for children (yet), so I sent the kids to do the visit without me. I was quite angry about being turned away. The whole visit of the village is outdoors. I decided to cross the street and walk around the outside of the wall and see as much as I could from the outside. At some places, the wall is only about 4 and a half feet tall, so I was certainly able to see enough to have my heart broken about the tragedy that occurred there...while simultaneously fuming at the oppression I was experiencing personally. It was an emotional roller coaster and I was on the verge of tears. Outside the walls there is a huge sign that says "SOUVIENS-TOI / REMEMBER." The irony of being told to remember the atrocities of the Nazis who decided who was "clean" and "unclean;" who oppressed, tortured, and killed innocent men, women, and children while myself being rejected and cast out because I don't have a QR code that I can flash to prove my worthiness was like turning the dagger in the wound. 

So my five children who live with me and with whom I share all germs can stroll around freely, but I have the gate barred before me. Yeah, this Health Pass makes so much sense!! (And earlier this week, we got some sandwiches from a bake shop. They had two tiny outdoor tables with two chairs each. As we went to sit down outside, I was told that the Health Pass was required. We left, but then I came back a few minutes later confirming that children were exempt. So I asked if they could sit at a table, and I would just stand next to them "off" of the property. They said yes. So I was literally RIGHT next to them on the other side of a little metal fence thing that demarcates the beginning of the parking lot! As of September 30, the Health Pass will be required for ages 12 and up. There are protests in about 200 French cities tomorrow against the Health Pass, and there have been every weekend for the past 5 weeks, with the numbers of protesters increasing each time. I'm not sure how much difference it makes, but that is just to say that there are plenty of French citizens who are not on board with La Passe Sanitaire.)

I've known about the Health Pass. It was implemented shortly before our arrival in France. I just wasn't expecting it today since I knew that it was outdoors. I hadn't visited the website to see their advisories, nor did I know about the Visitor Center that is the one way to enter. 

"SOUVIENS-TOI / REMEMBER" (on the sign to the right.)

"To her children killed for France. Let us faithfully keep the memory of our 642 martyrs, men, women, children massacred and burned by the Nazi troops on June 10, 1944."

This was the post office.

My view from behind the wall.