June 11


FRANCE:

ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE
Where 642 Died, a Wound Too Deep for Time to Heal


Sixty years ago, just days after Allied troops stormed the beaches of
Normandy, a German convoy rolled into this sleepy town, rounded up its
residents and gunned them to the ground before setting the buildings and
the piles of still writhing bodies on fire.

Six hundred and forty-two people died. Six survived. It was the worst Nazi
atrocity in France.

The massacre became a symbol not only of German brutality toward France
but of betrayal by collaborators, in particular those from Alsace, the
long-contested region between the two countries.

It was not until Thursday that representatives from the region, including
the mayor of Strasbourg and 50 schoolchildren, attended a ceremony marking
the massacre.

The incident, and the experience of occupation in general, continue to
shape France profoundly. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin presided over
Thursday's ceremony, declaring that Oradour "is the justification for the
politics of memory, resolute and innovative, that we follow."

Robert Hbras and Marcel Darthout, the only two remaining massacre
survivors, stood in the shade of a tree on the edge of the square where
the townspeople were assembled and recounted to Mr. Raffarin how the
Germans had separated the men from the women and children.

The women were taken to the church, where they were later raked with
gunfire before the church was set on fire. Only one survived. The men were
taken in groups to barns and garages and held at gunpoint.

"Until the last moment, we didn't believe that they were going to shoot,"
Mr. Darthout told Mr. Raffarin. When the shooting began, he said, "it was
hell."

Mr. Hbras and Mr. Darthout were among the first to fall in the fusillade
and were quickly buried beneath the bodies of their dying neighbors. Mr.
Darthout felt the man on top of him die after a soldier clambering over
the pile shot him in the head. He and Mr. Hbras escaped with three other
men when the barn was set on fire. They have said many men were alive when
the fire engulfed them.

Mr. Raffarin held both men by their forearms and thanked them "for keeping
the memory alive."

After the war, the state bought the ruins, rearranged some of the rusting
artifacts - burnt-out sedans, sewing machines and bullet-riddled baby
carriages - and turned the town into an eerie memorial, marked by stark
signs reading "Silence" or "Remember" or telling how many people died at
one place or another.

The sharp edges of the horror have softened with time. A reporter who
visited 25 years ago returned to see the same rusting meat hooks in the
butcher shop, the same rusting bread pans in the bakery, the same rusting
automobiles in the garages, but their link to the events seemed weaker.

A sleek new visitors' center and a crisp asphalt expanse for tour buses
have given the town the air of a national monument to a remote,
unreachable past. Gone is the sense of discovering, almost by accident,
the exposed bones of a town whose life was cut short one midafternoon.

But if recollections fade, reconciliation still comes slowly.

The Germans were carrying out reprisals for "terrorist" attacks after the
Normandy invasion and the Allies' exhortation to the French Resistance to
rise up.

Among the soldiers who carried out the killing were 14 Alsatians who had
been French citizens until the war. All but one were conscripts, though
witnesses to the massacre said none showed any reluctance to carry out
their chilling orders.

The 14 were finally convicted for their roles at a trial in 1953, but the
verdicts created such an uproar in Alsace that the French government,
fearing a separatist backlash, granted them amnesty the next day.

Oradour was outraged. The mayor sent back the Legion of Honor award the
government had bestowed on the town, and the remaining townspeople,
ignoring the state-built memorial, used private funds to erect a monument
to hold the bones and ashes of the victims. National officials were not
invited again to the annual commemoration for nearly 20 years.

Gradually, the town and state reconciled. But the rift with Alsace was
much deeper.

"Today, we have evidence that it's officially finished, that everyone is
reconciled," said Gilles de Lacaussade, counselor for memory in the French
Veterans' Administration.

Reconciliation has been in the air. The German chancellor, Gerhard
Schrder, has been talking about Oradour. He told French television last
week that the town had fallen victim to "the immoral and inhuman
Waffen-SS," Hitler's elite shock troops. "I feel ashamed,'' he said.

But one elderly Alsatian who had fought on behalf of the Nazis on the
Eastern Front stood at the back of the crowd, uneasy about mingling and
unwilling to talk to the assembled relatives of the victims.

(source: New York Times)

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Appeal by Nazi - Era Collaborator Rejected


In Paris, the state prosecutor asked France's highest court Friday to
reject an appeal by convicted Nazi-era collaborator Maurice Papon that
would lead to a retrial.

The Court of Cassation said it would rule on the appeal on Wednesday.

Papon, 93, a one-time budget minister, was convicted of complicity in
crimes against humanity in 1998 but has continued to claim his innocence
and sought ways to have
his name cleared.

The Court of Cassation was examining whether proper legal procedure was
followed ahead of the conviction. It was not judging Papon's guilt or
innocence.

About 15 members of the Association of Sons and Daughters of Deported Jews
of France demonstrated in front of the Justice Palace while the court
deliberated.

Papon was convicted for his role in deporting 1,690 Jews in the Bordeaux
area to Nazi death camps during World War II.

He was freed from prison in September 2002, less than three years into a
10-year sentence, under a law allowing early release for the ill and
aging.

At the time in question, Papon was the No. 2 official in the Bordeaux
region in southwestern France during the German occupation.

During World War II, some 76,000 Jews, including 12,000 children, were
deported from France, many to Auschwitz. Only 2,500 survived.

(source: Associated Press)