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We’d Better Stop
A day like any other
This morning, 10 June 2025, coming through Oradour-sur-Glane on the way to Limoges Airport, the driver says he thinks it’s the 81st anniversary of the Nazis’ execution of all but maybe nine of the townsfolk, near the end of World War II.
“How did it start? I ask him again.
“An SS company avenging the killing of a German General by the Resistance.”
“How many people?”
There are a million insignificant details in my head, but this grave historical fact that says so much about humanity— it just won’t stick.
“Six hundred,” he says.
The actual number is 642. I remember it now.
“That’s a full day’s work,” I say. I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth. “I mean, you couldn’t say it happened in the heat of battle or anything.”
“Yeah,” he says. “First they lock up the women and children. Then they line up and shoot the men. And then I guess they burn it all down.”
There’s nothing you can say to that without sullying the moment somehow.
It reminded me of something — the English engaging the Boers in diversionary shootouts in the South African hills and sending backup troops to do the real damage — put their families in concentration camps and…
