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Greg and Kerrie's travels
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Location Date Oceania 1498604400 North America 1476226800 Europe 
1443826800 Asia 1428274800 -
Location Date UK 1443826800 Netherlands 1440284400 Poland 1440198000 Germany 1439766000 France
1437865200 Italy 1436828400 Greece 1428534000 Czech Republic 1371942000 Slovakia 1371682800 Austria 1371596400 Slovenia 1371250800 Turkey 1310079600 Belgium 1309129200 Isle Of Man 1306623600 Spain 1304550000 Andorra 1304290800 Switzerland 1303686000 -
Location Date Dunkerque 1437865200 Corps 1437606000 Grenoble 1437433200 Paris 1436482800 Thionville 1431903600 Strasbourg 1431730800 Corsica 1430434800 Villers-Bretonneux 1372633200 Dieppe 1305500400 Le Mans 1305414000 Sainte-Mere-Eglise 1305068400 Le Mont-St-Michel 1304982000 Laval 1304895600 Oradour-Sur-Glane
1304809200 Agen 1304722800 Lourdes 1304377200 Narbonne 1304031600 St Raphael 1303945200 Gap 1303858800
Sunday 08.05.2011 - we left Agen and rode north continuing our French odessey. We stopped for lunch in a park and feasted on sardines on dry French toast. It was Kerrie's Mothers' Day lunch. Happy Mothers' Day Kerrie & to our daughter Stacey who is mum to our grand children Will and Tom.
We reached Saint Junien and checked into the Hotel Comodoliac. It was bloody hot when we arrived. The temperature was 29 degrees and it felt hotter.
We dumped our stuff and headed off to Oradour-sur-Glane, which is about 12 km away.
Oradour-sur-Glane is a martyred village; wiped out by the Germans in WW2. As a former history teacher, Greg knew the background and was keen to see for himself the place where an horrific act of barbery occurred at the hands of a battalion from the Das Reich Division of the Waffen SS on the 10th June 1944.
As you will recall, D Day was the 6th June 1944 when the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches. The French, after four years of Nazi subjugation, arose with wide spread acts of sabotage by the Resistance. As a reprisal, the Germans decided on an Act of Terror to demonstrate to the local population that all forms of resistance would not be tolerated and would be met with extreme violence.
On the 10th June 1944 about 200 SS soldiers surrounded the village and herded the population into the village square
where the men and boys were separated from the women and children. The men were shot where they stood and/or taken a short distance into the fields where they were finished off.
The women and children were forced into and locked in the town church where grenades were tossed in and then the occupants were racked with machine gun fire and the church set alight. The roof collapsed and many victims were burnt alive.
642 villagers were massacred including 205 children.
The village was never re-built and left as a memorial to the atrocity that occurred on the day.
The word "Remember" is written on all signs leading to and in Oradour-sur-Glane.
Somberly we rode back to our hotel not talking, each lost in our own thoughts about mans' inhumanity to man.
We reached Saint Junien and checked into the Hotel Comodoliac. It was bloody hot when we arrived. The temperature was 29 degrees and it felt hotter.
We dumped our stuff and headed off to Oradour-sur-Glane, which is about 12 km away.
Oradour-sur-Glane is a martyred village; wiped out by the Germans in WW2. As a former history teacher, Greg knew the background and was keen to see for himself the place where an horrific act of barbery occurred at the hands of a battalion from the Das Reich Division of the Waffen SS on the 10th June 1944.
As you will recall, D Day was the 6th June 1944 when the Allies landed on the Normandy beaches. The French, after four years of Nazi subjugation, arose with wide spread acts of sabotage by the Resistance. As a reprisal, the Germans decided on an Act of Terror to demonstrate to the local population that all forms of resistance would not be tolerated and would be met with extreme violence.
On the 10th June 1944 about 200 SS soldiers surrounded the village and herded the population into the village square
where the men and boys were separated from the women and children. The men were shot where they stood and/or taken a short distance into the fields where they were finished off.
The women and children were forced into and locked in the town church where grenades were tossed in and then the occupants were racked with machine gun fire and the church set alight. The roof collapsed and many victims were burnt alive.
642 villagers were massacred including 205 children.
The village was never re-built and left as a memorial to the atrocity that occurred on the day.
The word "Remember" is written on all signs leading to and in Oradour-sur-Glane.
Somberly we rode back to our hotel not talking, each lost in our own thoughts about mans' inhumanity to man.
- comments
Sandra Really sad but didn't know about this so good to read