Fiction by Steve Jaeger, based on actual events that took place in France in 1944.
—
At fifteen, Gaspar Fournier had as much military experience as any of his fellow Marquis. Very few people even knew Gaspar by his real name. To most people he was known as Le Bec. He was a fearless soldier and by his childish, almost feminine look he was one of the most effective couriers in the southern region. Le Bec was from Limoges, his mother had died in an influenza epidemic when he was a toddler and his mostly absent father had disappeared in Sedan in 1940 when his armored regiment was overrun by the Germans. Gaspar had lived with his mother’s very old aunt in the small village of Oradour Sur Glane since but was rarely there as operations kept him very busy especially since the Germans had occupied the former free zone of Vichy.
♦◊♦
On June 10th, 1944 Le Bec was returning from Lyon where he had participated in the abduction and interrogation of a member of the Milice, the Vichy para-military police force that took its orders from the SS. Le Bec had snatched the pistol from the terrified Marquis who could not face executing a prisoner and had put the bullet in the collaborator’s rotten fucking skull. He handed the pistol back to the Marquis, twice his age and said, “Here, you fucking woman, be careful you don’t shoot yourself.”
He was on his way back to spend the night with his aunt when he heard the rumble of heavy vehicles and darted into the woods. He saw the armored troop carriers filled with German soldiers wearing the grey green uniforms of the Waffen SS. Battle scarred Panzers followed and two staff cars led the way. They were all emblazoned with the skull and crossbones and double lightening flashes of the SS. The troops looked as grimy and hard as their vehicles. They continued up the road where four kilometers ahead lay the village of Oradour Sur Glane. Le Bec kept to the edge of the woods and followed after the troops. This was not a combat zone and they were probably heading north to join the fight against the allies who had landed a few days before in Normandy but the sight of these monsters anywhere was never good.
♦◊♦
As Le Bec approached the village he heard loud voices barking orders in German and accented French. He moved back into the woods and moved in for a better look. The Germans had all deployed from the their carriers and were rounding up the villagers separating the men from the women and children. The women and children were screaming and wailing at the men and the Germans were screaming at everyone. It looked like boys as young as twelve were being herded with the men. Le Bec saw a cousin Marcel, a rather stupid man who after a few glasses or wine with his supper would say the Marshal Petin was a great man who would save France from the Communists and the Jews. Marcel was pleading with a soldier who was prodding him into the square with the other men and boys. Marcel was shouting that he was and had always been pro Vichy and pro German. When he tried to grab the German to plead his case, the German struck Marcel on the side of the head with his machine pistol and as Marcel fell to his knees the soldier shot him with a bust from his gun. Marcel’s chest exploded from the force of the bullets and as he toppled over, his wife and small daughter Chloe ran to him. The soldier shot the wife also at point blank range and kicked little Chloe so hard she vomited a stream of blood and collapsed next to her dead parents. Le Bec involuntarily made the sign of the cross and watched in horror and disbelief as the villagers were separated.
One group of Germans marched the men off to the edge of the village while another herded the women and children to the church just off the village square. The were shoved inside with much wailing and screaming. A German soldier emerged from a shop carrying a case of wine. He passed one to a grinning tank commander sitting in the turret of his Panzer in his black uniform with a wide grin on his face. The officers in the two staff cars were laughing and joking as they issued orders. When all of the women were in the church, some soldiers began to barricade the doors and windows. A woman and two girls tumbled out of one of the rear windows and began to run towards the woods where Le Bec was watching. Two Germans, laughing as they ran after the three, opened fire with their machine pistols and cut them down. The Germans then turned back and walked towards the church.
When the guns fell silent the wails of the women trapped in the church and the moaning of the man, many of who had been shot only in the legs, filled the air.
|
The men meanwhile were lined up and marched towards several large barns on the outskirts of the village. Le Bec estimated there were at least two hundred, probably more. The Germans had set up several sets of heavy machine guns and their crews were lounging beside them drinking looted wine. When the men had all been gathered the machine guns opened up on them cutting them down like rows of wheat. When the guns fell silent the wails of the women trapped in the church and the moaning of the man, many of who had been shot only in the legs, filled the air. Germans began dousing the piles of bodies, as many alive as dead with petrol and when the order was given, set alight. The other group of Germans guarding the church began tossing grenades into the windows of the church and then doused the piles of debris piled up against the doors and windows with petrol and set the building aflame. The wails of the women turned to shrieks as they began to burn alive. The soldier who had shot Marcel and his wife saw little Chloe feebly moving. He picked her up by her ankle and carried her over to the church where he tossed her like a rag doll through a burning window. The Germans watching were laughing and carrying on as though they were at a picnic. Le Bec, through his tears saw the older woman who had been shot very slowly begin to drag herself towards a nearby bush. She rolled underneath it and as she turned her head she saw Le Bec staring at her from his hiding place. She lifted her head and opened her mouth as though to call out but Le Bec help two fingers to his lips to silence her. He made a gesture with his hands that he saw her and to lay still.
The Germans meanwhile were looting the town. An occasional gunshot was heard as a German came across a villager who had hidden from the round up. The tanks began firing into the vacant homes and shops. Soon the entire village was ablaze. As they climbed into their vehicles and tanks they were still laughing and shouting as though they had just attended an exciting sporting event. The Germans rolled away and Le Bec emerged from his hiding spot and rushed to the wounded woman. She had bullet wounds to her shoulder, her leg and her bum. Le Bec asked her name. She weakly replied, “Margeurite” and began to shiver violently. Le Bec said, “I’m going to get you help, don’t move.” And ran into the blazing village where he found a car that appeared to be unscathed. He drove around the burning church where the screaming had stopped carefully helped the woman in to the seat. As he drove away in the opposite direction of the Germans, he bowed his head and said a silent prayer for his old aunt, cousin and all the massacred. He vowed on the blood of the innocents that he would kill every fucking German on the earth.
♦◊♦
Two days after the massacre, Le Bec was contacted by a local farmer and asked to meet. Le Bec found hiding in the farmer’s barn, an American named Raymond Murphy whose B-17 had been shot down over Avord. The farmer said in so many words he was aware what Le Bec did and asked him to take the young Lieutenant to safety. Le Bec agreed but told the American he must show him something first and in the early morning hours he took Murphy to the still smoldering ruins of Oradour Sur Glane. The airman was ashen faced as he gazed at the charred bodies of the village men and vomited when they came across the tiny body of an infant that had been nailed to a wooden cross that had been pulled off the wall of the ruined church. Le Bec in his best schoolboy English said, “You must tell!” Murphy vowed he would tell the world what he had seen. A month later Murphy was delivered to the American lines by a young French boy who would have looked angelic had it not been for his hard set eyes and unsmiling face.
In 1953 a tribunal was held in Bordeaux for the 21 surviving members of the SS Panzer Division Das Reich that had taken part in the massacre. One of the former soldiers was exonerated when it was disclosed that he was an Alsatian who claimed to have been forced to join the SS. A young man sitting in the courtroom recognized the soldier instantly and silently left the courtroom. In Lille a little over a month later the body of the man was found in an alley. He had been badly beaten and burned with a hot poker before his throat had been cut. Across his chest someone had cut with a knife, “POUR LA PETITE CHLOE 10.6.1944
____
Photo credit: Getty Images