The Memorial to the dead in Oradour-sur-Glane cemetery in 1998
The names of all the 643 victims are inscribed on the 10 black tablets on the rear wall. There is a separate smaller tablet visible on the extreme right (half in shadow) that duplicates the names of the 44 people who came from Charly in Lorraine (now re-named Charly-Oradour) near Metz in Department 57, Moselle. When this photograph was taken in 1998, there was no separate memorial to the 9 people who came from Alsace, but this has now been rectified and they have their own tablet on the extreme left of the main tablets. Compare this view with the one taken 10 years later in 2008 when both the memorials to Alsace and Lorraine were in place. There is also a panorama of this view.
Around the base of the stele and the enclosing walls are family memorial tablets. The two coffin shaped objects either side of the stele are glass roofed ossuaries. The main cemetery is behind the photographer and most of the identified victims are interred there in family plots.
© Michael Williams: May 1998 revised November 2006