On June 10, 1944, a unit of the SS Das Reich division massacred the inhabitants and set fire to the village. The ruins remain the essential part of the village. They are simply cleared of parasitic vegetation and discreetly shored up; the lawns are mown. No matter the crowds or the holidaymakers, visitors will be taken by the silence, all the greater the further they escape from the main street. Among the houses: a rusting sewing machine, car wrecks, humble reminders of the trades that animated an ordinary village in 1944 France. The tramway tracks and poles are still in place. To preserve the memory of the tragedy, the martyred village of Oradour-sur-Glane has been preserved as it was in 1944.
