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October Military Auction
Lot 631:
Commemorative Booklet Printed in France About the Massacre of Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944, the French village that was liquidated by the Waffen SS "Das Reich" Division. Very illustrated booklet written in French. On 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 643 civilians, including non-combatant men, women, and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company as collective punishment for resistance activity in the area including the kidnapping and subsequent execution of Waffen SS Sturmbannfuhrer Helmut Kampfe, who was burned alive in front of an audience. Kampfe was a highly decorated commander in 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich.The Germans murdered all people they found in the village at the time, as well as people brought in from the surrounding area. The death toll includes people who were merely passing by in the village at the time of the SS company’s arrival. Men were brought into barns and sheds where they were shot in the legs and doused with gasoline before the barns were set on fire. Women and children were herded into a church that was set on fire; those who tried to escape through the windows were machine-gunned. Extensive looting took place.All in all, 643 individuals are recorded to have been murdered. The death toll includes 17 Spanish citizens, 8 Italians, and 3 Poles.Shipping from our office in Europe.
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