Article

2008-07-23 Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Record 450 French Jews headed for Israel

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Posted by tu3031 2008-07-23 09:11|| || Front Page|| [11128 views ] Top

#1 The quick and the dead.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-07-23 09:56|| 2008-07-23 09:56|| Front Page Top

#2 Can't blame them. One Oradour-sur-Glane is quite enough.

Posted by Besoeker 2008-07-23 10:15|| 2008-07-23 10:15|| Front Page Top

#3 The people killed at Oradour were not jews, they were your average forties french rural folks, and the actual killers were not germans, IIRC, but french soldiers from Alsace who had been forcibly enlisted in the german army (the only germans involved were the officers).

Posted by anonymous5089 2008-07-23 10:41|| 2008-07-23 10:41|| Front Page Top

#4 Moose, you have a reference that the SS were composed of draftees?

In the days leading up to the Allied D-Day landings at Normandy, the local French Resistance increased its activities in order to disrupt local German forces and to hinder communications. 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich was ordered to make its way across the country to the anticipated fighting in Normandy. Along the way, the Germans killed many French citizens and, in turn, came under attack and sabotage from the French Resistance.

Early on the morning of June 10, 1944, SturmbannfÃ¼hrer Adolf Diekmann, commanding the I battalion of the 4th Waffen-SS ("Der FÃ¼hrer") Panzer-Grenadier Regiment, informed SturmbannfÃ¼hrer Otto Weidinger at regimental headquarters that he had been approached by two French civilians who claimed that a German officer was being held by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby town. The captured German was alleged to be SturmbannfÃ¼hrer Helmut KÃ¤mpfe, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion, who may have been captured by the Maquis the day before.

On June 10, Diekmann's battalion sealed off the town of Oradour-sur-Glane, having confused it with nearby Oradour-sur-Vayres, and ordered all the townspeople â and anyone who happened to be in or nearby the town â to assemble in the village square, ostensibly to have their papers examined. In addition to the residents of the village, the SS also apprehended six people who did not live there but had the misfortune of riding their bikes through town when the Germans arrived.

All the women and children were then taken to and locked in the church while the village itself was looted. Meanwhile, the men were led to six barns and sheds where machine-gun nests were already in place. According to the account of a survivor, the soldiers began shooting at them, aiming for their legs so that they would die more slowly. Once the victims were no longer able to move, the soldiers covered their bodies with kindling and set the barns on fire. Only five men escaped; 190 men died.

The soldiers then proceeded to the church and put an incendiary device in place there. After it was ignited, women and children tried to flee from the doors and windows of the church, but were met with machine-gun fire. Two-hundred and forty-seven women and two-hundred and five children died in the mayhem. Only one woman survived, 47-year-old local housewife Marguerite Rouffanche. She had managed to slide out of a small window at the back of the church, and hid in the bushes overnight until the Germans had moved on. Another small group of about twenty villagers had fled Oradour-sur-Glane as soon as the soldiers had appeared. That night, the remainder of the village was razed.

A few days later, survivors were allowed to bury the dead. It was found that six-hundred and forty-two inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane had been brutally murdered in a matter of hours.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-07-23 10:47|| 2008-07-23 10:47|| Front Page Top

#5 Anonymous - Quite correct. My point was simply the possibility of a future brutalities at the hands of invaders.

Posted by Besoeker 2008-07-23 10:49|| 2008-07-23 10:49|| Front Page Top

#6 Moose, you have a reference that the SS were composed of draftees?

That was something I remembered out of the fact the killers were actually pardoned by the french justice in the early 50's. I went to french wikipedia, and it sez that out of 21 killers, 14 were alsacians 'malgré-nous', IE forcibly-enlisted into the german army, as they were seen as ethnically and culturally german (which they are, though they have their own distinct regional identity).

Posted by anonymous5089 2008-07-23 11:27|| 2008-07-23 11:27|| Front Page Top

#7 Moose,

look hard again. It was a battalion. That's far more than 21. I'm aware of SS impressment, but that doesn't kick in till late '44, early '45. And the SS were not the 'German Army' but a separate organization directly under Himmler. It's like us mixing our Army and Marine Corps, two distinct organizations with different chain of command till you get to the JCS. As far as the French government dropping the issue, it seems to have had more in line with relations with the new Germany rather than the individuals involved. Remember the French had no problem offing their own people who collaborated with the Germans during the occupation. Petain survived only because of his WWI stature.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-07-23 13:25|| 2008-07-23 13:25|| Front Page Top

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