Pike Silent Village

The Life and Death of Oradour-sur-Glane
2. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7509-9760-7
Verlag: The History Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 544 Seiten

'Based on eye-witness accounts, Robert Pike's moving book vividly depicts the lives of the villagers who were caught up in the tragedy of Oradour-sur-Glane and brings their experiences to our attention for the first time.' - Hanna Diamond, author of Fleeing Hitler On 10 June 1944, four days after Allied forces landed in Normandy, the picturesque village of Oradour-sur-Glane in the rural heart of France was destroyed by an armoured SS Panzer division. Six hundred and forty-three men, women and children were murdered in the nation's worst wartime atrocity. Today, Oradour is remembered as a 'martyred village' and its ruins are preserved, but the stories of its inhabitants lie buried under the rubble of the intervening decades. Silent Village gathers the powerful testimonies of survivors in the first account of Oradour as it was both before the tragedy and in its aftermath. A lost way of life is vividly recollected in this unique insight into the traditions, loves and rivalries of a typical village in occupied France. Why this peaceful community was chosen for extermination has remained a mystery. Putting aside contemporary hearsay, Nazi rhetoric and revisionist theories, in this updated third edition Robert Pike returns to the archival evidence to narrate the tragedy as it truly happened - and give voice to the anguish of those left behind.

ROBERT PIKE is a graduate of the University of Exeter in History and French. His fascination with the German occupation of France and the Vichy period led to him tracking down former Resistance members and trawling official archives and secondary histories in order to understand the Resistance from the ground up. His quest to tell the stories of the few that acted, and the many others whose actions still remain shrouded in mystery, begins with Defying Vichy.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Pike, Robert

Leseproben

Cast

Avril, Marie

Ran the after the death of her second husband. Her daughter, Marguerite Laurence, brought her husband Henri and their children to the village when Paris was occupied.

Avril, Michel

Wood merchant who also sold other fuels including petrol.

Bardet, Denise

Taught at the girls’ school and lived with her mother, Louise, and brother, Camille, in a nearby hamlet.

Beau, Joseph

Socialist mayor of the village from 1914 to 1941.

Beaubreuil, Martial

An escaped prisoner of war; he hid in the grocery store.

Beaubreuil, Maurice

Evaded obligatory work service (STO) by hiding in the Mercier store with his older brother.

Bélivier, Marcel

Son of a farmer in the hamlet of Les Brégères.

Bergmann, Joseph

Barber in the . German and Jewish by birth, though most believed him to be Austrian.

Besson, Robert

Young veteran of the 1940 war whose family ran a textile shop.

Bielsa, Millán

Former medic; refugee from Spain sent as an inmate to the 643rd (GTE).

Binet, Andrée

Head of the girls’ school but absent in early 1944 due to a difficult pregnancy.

Biver, Gilberte

Refugee from Moselle; met Jean Henry, then a camp warden at the 643rd GTE, and moved with him to the Paris area.

Blum, Léon

Jewish politician; prime minister in the Popular Front () government. Arrested by the Vichy authorities.

Bonnet, Madeleine

Ward of the state; worked as a live-in housemaid for Jeanne Mercier.

Borie, Mathieu

Builder from Limoges with a workshop in Oradour; part of a Resistance network.

Bouchoule, Léopold

One of the village’s bakers.

Brandy, Eugénie

Owner of the . Of her three daughters, Andrée worked at the tram station and Jeannine worked as a hairdresser and was married to mechanic Aimé Renaud. Youngest daughter Antoinette worked alongside her mother in the café and, like her mother, also sewed gloves.

Brissaud, Martial

Wheelwright who worked with his father on the western edge of the village.

Chapelle, Jean-Baptiste

Oradour’s long-serving priest.

Compain, Maurice

with a shop on the .

Coppenolle, Berthe and

Business partners from Roubaix who arrived as

Crombé, Jeanne

refugees with their families and moved into the La Lauze farm.

Coudert, Georges

Young police inspector based in Limoges.

Couty, Odette

Teacher brought in to replace Andrée Binet.

Couvidou, Germaine

Albert Valade’s sister; young mother of four who lived at the Valade tenant farm.

Dagoury, Mélanie

Owner of and her late husband’s cement and masonry business.

Darnand, Joseph

Former soldier; created the to combat the Resistance.

Darthout, Jean-Marcel

Part of the football team; aspired to be a teacher but had to find alternative work to avoid a call up to STO. His father, François, was a postal worker.

Denis, Léon

Wineseller, municipal councillor and leader of a musical society.

Desourteaux, André

Grandson of mayors Joseph Beau and Paul Desourteaux; son of grocers Emile and Alice.

Desourteaux, Hubert

Son of Paul; a mechanic with a garage on the main street.

Desourteaux, Paul

Former mayor; political opponent of Joseph Beau. Head of the special delegation, mayor in all but name, in 1944.

Doutre, Paul

Eldest of two brothers; hidden by his family when called up for STO in Germany.

Dupic, François and Jean

Brothers who each ran their own textile shop.

Filliol, Jean

of the , the ‘action and information’ service – a kind of Gestapo of the French .

Foussat, André

Miller from a nearby hamlet; served on the municipal council and ran the amateur dramatic society.

Freund-Valade, Marc

‘Prefect’ of the Haute-Vienne from September 1943.

Gaudy, Yvonne

Teenage girl who sewed gloves for the Saint-Junien factories.

de Gaulle, Charles

Leader of the Free French who left for London in June 1940.

Godfrin, Roger

Arrived with his family after the Moselle was cleared of Franco-phone elements; 7 years old in June 1944.

Gougeon, Fernand

Teacher in Moselle; taught in the school for refugees.

Guingouin, Georges

Former teacher and one of the first men to take to the .

Hébras, Robert

Son of Jean, a former employee of the tramway, and Marie, who sewed for extra money. Aspired to be a but circumstances led to him becoming a mechanic in Limoges. He had three sisters, two older than him, one a decade his junior.

Henry, Jean

Music teacher who became a guard at the Oradour camp. Met his wife, a refugee from Moselle, in Oradour.

Hyvernaud, Fernand

Dealer in farm animals whose house and barns were next to the church. His daughter Henriette Joyeux had married and moved away but visited Oradour with husband Marcel and baby son René.

Jakobowicz, David

Son of Jewish immigrants who became involved with the .

Jakobowicz, Sarah

Hidden by Martial Machefer when her brother David’s clandestine activities placed the family in danger.

Kanzler, Joseph

Jewish man who stayed in the village with his family when most of the Schiltigheim evacuees returned north to a nazified Strasbourg.

Lamaud, Marie and Jean

Looked after various (wards of the state) at their Bellevue farm.

Lang, Jules and Jeanne

Jewish couple who came to Oradour from Bordeaux.

Laval, Pierre

Former lawyer who became head of the government under Pétain.

de Lavérine,

Owner of several properties in...