Centre de la Mémoire d’Oradour-sur-Glane

The Centre de la Mémoire d’Oradour-sur-Glane (Oradour-sur-Glane Centre of Memory) preserves and commemorates the remnants of the village-martyr (martyred town) town of Oradour-sur-Glane, Haute-Vienne. The town was destroyed and its inhabitants massacred on June 10, 1944 by units from the 4th Panzer Grenadier Regiment Der Fuhrer attached to the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich. This was done in response to local French Resistance activity, and the alleged capture and imprisonment of a German Waffen-SS officer in the town of Oradour-sur-Vayres, which was mistaken for Oradour-sur-Glane. The town was looted and razed, while all inhabitants present were herded into buildings (the men into barns and sheds; the women and children into the village church) where they were machine-gunned and the buildings set alight. The massacre resulted in the deaths of 643 French civilians and remains the largest mass-killing committed by German forces against French civilians during the Second World War. In 1946 the ruins were classified as a historical monument, to be left as a memorial and a reminder. A new town was rebuilt nearby.

Following decades of visitors to the site and the degradation of the original ruins, a proposal for a permanent memorial museum was initiated in 1989 by the Conseil-Général de la Haute-Vienne in cooperation with Oradour-sur-Glane and the National Association of Families of the Martyrs of Oradour (l’Association Nationale des Familles des Martyrs d’Oradour). The Centre de la Mémoire d’Oradour-sur-Glane was formally inaugurated by President Jacques Chirac on July 16, 1999. It was created as a memorial and point of access to the ruins, and as a museum on the historical context and on themes of wartime violence and violence against civilians.

The museum’s permanent exhibition presents the historical context surrounding the massacre, the course of the massacre itself, and the aftermath. Historical context includes a broad look at the rise of Nazism, the declaration of war, the defeat of 1940, the establishment of Vichy, and the activities of the French Resistance, as well as the prior record of the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzer Division Das Reich and details of daily life in Oradour-sur-Glane in June 1944. The massacre itself is described in an audiovisual presentation which includes records, photographs, and testimonies from witnesses. The exhibition concludes with a focus on the aftermath: reconstruction and commemoration for individual survivors, as well as the role of Oradour-sur-Glane in national remembrance. A final space is dedicated to individual reflection, and leads outdoors into the preserved physical ruins of Oradour-sur-Glane.

In addition to this permanent exhibition, temporary installations provide greater detail on aspects of the massacre and address other examples of violence; past exhibitions have included the Hitler Youth, the Spanish Civil War, and 9/11. The museum’s archive contains additional documentation on the massacre and surrounding events.