Henry lives nearby, and emailed me the story about Oradour. The German army rounded up all the villagers on suspicion of collaborating with the resistance during WW2 and placed all the women and children in the church, and the menfolk in various buildings around the village. At the church, soldiers brought in a box containing some sort of explosive device and detonated it amidst the terrified women and children. The SS then started firing their machine guns into the church through the doors and windows and also threw in hand grenades to murder the women and children.
They shot the men in the legs before setting fire to the entire village, the church included, thus burning alive some 600 people. The whole village was completely destroyed and only a handful of people escaped.
The village was designated a memorial site and left exactly as it was on the day of the attrocity,and remains so to this day. Hence all the contents of the village including all the vehicles remain in situ where they were burned.
That is the saddest thing you'll learn all week.
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