Rue Emile Desourteaux looking towards the road to the cemetery
The Rue Emile Desourteaux looking toward the road leading to the cemetery (just visible on the left before the bend). All the properties in Oradour show extensive fire damage, but no obvious blast damage. There has been as much erosion over the last half a century as one would expect and this has served to soften the outlines of the ruins. The people who came to the village in the days following the massacre did carry out quite extensive tidying up operations and all the rubble that had fallen into the streets was removed. The properties themselves were left internally as they were found once they had been searched for remains. The figure on the right is 5ft 4ins tall and is there to give a sense of scale.
© Michael Williams: revised February 2004