The Remembered

This monument is in Domme and memorializes those who died in WW2. Affixed to a larger monument erected in honor of those who died in WW1.  Along with the size, there are other differences between the two.  54 citizens of Domme are memorialized on the WW1 monument, an enormous toll on a commune of only about a thousand inhabitants.  Only 21 names appear on the WW2 roll.  They include what appears to be two sets of brothers.  And, if you compare those names with those named on the WW1 monument, you realize it is likely some fathers and sons died in the two wars.

There is another difference how the dead are described.  Those of WW1 are all listed with no distinctions while those of WW2 are broken into three categories; those deported and perished; those killed in combat; and those "fusilles" - shot by the Germans.  There are two names added after the monument was originally constructed, one on the lower left who died in North Africa while in the army and, on the lower right, a person who died after being deported to the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Those listed as "fusilles" probably died during the terrible days of May and June 1944, when the area between the Lot (the river valley south of the Dordogne) and Limoges (about 100 miles north of Domme), became the scene of hard fighting and brutal reprisals between the German army and the French Resistance. 

This area was one of the strongholds of the Resistance.  Both Germans and French were aware that sometime that summer of 1944, the Allied invasion would occur though where and when was unknown.  German forces stationed around the area began sweeps against the various Resistance groups and these continued until July.  Violence escalated with news of the Normandy landings on June 6, when partisans came out of hiding and attacked German formations moving north through the area as they attempted to reach the Allied landing areas.

The list of encounters is long and bloody; here are a few.  

On May 21 in the little village of Frayssinet-Le-Gelat, twenty miles south of Domme, the Germans, in retaliation for the death of an SS officer, killed 15 hostages; ten young men from one-child families and five young women. 

On June 21 in another retaliatory action in response to frequent Resistance attacks, the village of Moutyedier was attacked and burned to the ground; 65 civilians and Resistance fighters were killed.

Less than five miles down the road from where we are staying is a plaque in memory of Marie Delteil, aged 80, who "fell victim to Nazi barbarism" on June 26.

This plaque is on the bridge across the Dordogne, just down the hill from Domme.  It is in memory of Louis Desplat "killed here by the German hordes", also on June 26.  The red plate next to it says he was a clock-maker and a member of the resistance, who was captured and then tortured by the Germans during a mission, but would not talk.  He was taken to the bridge, shot, and his body dumped into the river.

 

However, the worst occurred in the first week after the D-Day landings.

In early 1944, one of Hitler's elite formations, the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich, was withdrawn from the Eastern Front for rest and refitting in the area near Toulouse, south of Dordogne.

With word of the Allied landings, Das Reich began moving north through Dordogne and the Limoges area while the lightly armed partisans made efforts to block the narrow roads.  Fighting took place in many locations, as well as German reprisals.  On June 8, at Grolejac, the town immediately east of Domme, seven Resistance fighters were killed, while another four died in Carsac, across the river from Grolejac.

That same day another Das Reich column stopped at a bakery in the village of Rouffillac (10 miles from Domme) and demanded the proprietress make them crepes.  When she refused, she and 15 other civilians were locked in the bakery which the Nazis then burned down.  

Fighting also occurred that day in Cressensac, Noailles, Gabaudet, and in other towns and villages.

On June 7, upon receiving news of the Allied landings, partisans attacked and overwhelmed a small German garrison in Tulle, a town about 60 miles from Domme.  Two days later, Das Reich arrived and retook the town.  In those battles 37 Germans were killed along with 50-100 French fighters.  In retaliation, the Germans arrested all men between the ages of 16 and 60, hanged 99 of them, and deported another 149, of whom 101 died at Dachau.

The climax occurred on June 10 at the small town of Oradour-sur-Glane, near Limoges, when Das Reich murdered 642 men and women, including 247 children, and burned the village.  Most of the men were machine-gunned, while the women and children were locked in a church which was set afire. Charles de Gaulle ordered the destroyed village preserved eternally as a memorial, leaving everything as it was that day and as it remains in 2022.

 

The classic 1970s BBC series, The World At War, told the story of that day, narrated by Laurence Olivier:

Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.

Remembrance

Today is Remembrance Day in France.  On May 8, 1945 the Second World War in Europe ended.  As we drove though the countryside today, we passed commemorations being held in several village centers, mostly attended by older folks.

In Domme, where we are staying for a month, the memorial to the war dead was decorated with flags and flowers.  The WW2 side of the memorial has many fewer names than the WW1 side.  It's not the only difference.  The WWI dead were all in the French army when they perished, but the WW2 side shows seven dead in combat, six dead deportees, and six civilians shot by the Germans in local actions.  The latter were members of the Resistance or civilians killed in the summer of 1944.  Partially obscured in the lower right is a later addition marking the death of a resident at the Mauthausen concentration camp.

Yesterday, Mrs THC and I drove two hours north to Oradour-sur-Glane, a somber and disturbing visit.

On Saturday morning June 10, 1944, Oradour was crowded.  Though the commune had a population of about 1,400, the central village contained only 330, but on that morning almost 700 were in the village.  It was a school day so children from outlying farms were there as well as farmers who came into town to get their monthly tobacco allowance.  A half-dozen cyclists were also passing through the village.

Oradour was a prosperous community, in a green setting near the river Glace, only a few miles from the large city of Limoges.  Before the war it was a popular place for Limoges residents to take the tram line to Oradour and picnic by the stream.

In early afternoon about 200 soldiers from the SS 2nd Panzer (Das Reich) Division arrived, sealed off the town, and ordered everyone present to assemble in a field behind the village.  Some 20 to 30 inhabitants realized something was wrong and escaped into the woods but more than 650 people were left in the field.  The Germans separated the 195 men from the 453 women and children, with the latter moved into the small village church.

The men, including the cyclists, were further separated into five groups, taken to buildings and close by farms, shot, and the men and the buildings set afire.  Five men, all wounded, managed to survive.

The Germans set off an incendiary device within the church, which filled with smoke.  As women and children tried to escape they were fired upon by machine guns.  It was death by gunfire, smoke, and flame.  Only one women survived; with both her daughters dead she plunged out a window.  Shot five times she managed to crawl into nearby woods where she was found two days later. Marguerite Rouffanche would spend a year in hospital recovering physically.  She would pass in 1988.  The last survivor, Robert Hebras, died in 2023.  Hebras, then 18, was slightly wounded in the head, chest, and thigh and survived by remaining under a pile of bodies in one of the barns.  His mother and two sisters were killed in the church. After the war Hebras became an advocate for reconciliation between French and Germans.

After the killing spree every building in the village was set afire.

By order of Charles de Gaulle, Oradour was never demolished or rebuilt.  It was left as it was on the evening of June 10, as a permanent memorial to the martyrs.  A new Oradour was built several hundred yards away.

Most of the German officers involved were killed before the war ended.

Below are several photos I took of our visit.  We went into the small church but I felt so overwhelmed thinking about the 246 women and 207 children crammed inside and of the havoc and terror unleashed upon them, I could not take any photos.  Oradour is more than ruined buildings, as you walk around you see sewing machines and cooking pots sitting as they were in 1944.  On the floor of the church are the remains of a baby carriage. We did not see everything in the village.  I'd watched videos, seen photos, and read about Oradour, but the experience of actually walking the streets was much more powerful and after a while we decided we needed to leave. 

This is an aerial view of the village:

 

The classic early 1970s 26-part BBC series, The World At War, opened with photos of Oradour and this narration by Laurence Olivier:

Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a world at war.

This is video explains in more detail what happened that day.  It tells why the Das Reich Division was in the area and its movement north from the area around Toulouse.  The German columns had to pass through the Dordogne, a stronghold of Resistance fighters determined to slow down the Nazi move towards the Allied landings in Normandy.  Two of the towns mentioned where fighting occurred, Groljeac and Carsac, are next to Domme.

Both Germans and French were aware that sometime in the summer of 1944 the Allied invasion would occur.  In May, German forces stationed around the area began sweeps against the various Resistance groups and these continued into August.  Violence escalated with news of the Normandy landings on June 6, when partisans came out of hiding and attacked German formations moving north through the area as they attempted to reach the Allied landing areas.

The list of encounters is long and bloody; here are a few.  

On May 21 in the little village of Frayssinet-Le-Gelat, twenty miles south of Domme, the Germans, in retaliation for the death of an SS officer, killed 15 hostages; ten young men from one-child families and five young women. 

With word of the Allied landings, Das Reich began moving north through Dordogne and the Limoges area while the lightly armed partisans made efforts to block the narrow roads.  Fighting took place in many locations, as well as German reprisals.  On June 8, at Groljeac, seven Resistance fighters were killed, while another four died in Carsac, across the river from Groljeac.

That same day another Das Reich column stopped at a bakery in the village of Rouffillac (10 miles from Domme) and demanded the proprietress make them crepes.  When she refused, she and 15 other civilians were locked in the bakery which the Nazis then burned down.  

Fighting also occurred that day in Cressensac, Noailles, Gabaudet, and in other towns and villages.

On June 7, upon receiving news of the Allied landings, partisans attacked and overwhelmed a small German garrison in Tulle, a town about 60 miles from Domme.  Two days later, Das Reich arrived and retook the town.  In those battles 37 Germans were killed along with 50 to 100 French fighters.  In retaliation, the Germans arrested all men between the ages of 16 and 60, hanged 99 of them, and deported another 149, of whom 101 died at Dachau.

Fifty four (52 hostages and 2 fighters) were executed at Mussidan on June 11.

On June 12 the Germans shot twelve hostages, including the entire Frydman family. 

On June 21 the village of Moutyedier was attacked and burned to the ground; 65 civilians and Resistance fighters were killed.

More fighting occurred in Cenac and Domme on June 26-27.  This was part of a larger wave that included the neighboring towns and villages of Sarlat, La Roque Gageac, Castlenaud, Vitrac, and Vezac where the SS murdered 93 year old Raymond Lespinasse.

Less than three miles from where we are staying is a plaque in memory of Marie Delteil, aged 80, who "fell victim to Nazi barbarism" on June 26.

A couple of hundred yards away from the Delteil memorial is another plaque, on the bridge across the Dordogne at Cenac, just down the hill from Domme, in memory of Louis Desplat "killed here by the German hordes", also on June 26.  A clock-maker and  member of the resistance, Desplat was captured and tortured by the Germans, but would not talk.  He was taken to the bridge, shot, and his body dumped into the river. 

Memorial to Marie Delteil

Memorial to 12 members of the Resistance, including one unknown victim, executed on June 26.  This is on the road up to Domme.  The two Marx brothers were refugees from elsewhere in France.

 

Memorial affixed to the wall of the former hospital in Domme.  Jose Duerto Mendoza was a Spaniard who fled to France after Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War and then joined the French Resistance, as did two of those named on the plaque above.  Mendoza was wounded in the action on the 26th, made it to the Domme hospital, was found there the next day by the Germans who shot him.

 

On June 30, twelve hostages taken at Domme and Cougnac on June 26-28 were executed by the side of the road to Gourdon. 

The mayor of St-André-d'Appelles was executed on July 7 for having placed a tricolor flag on the remains of a resister. 

Fighting in the region continued into August.  It was only with Operation Dragoon, the Allied landing in the south of France on August 15 and their rapid advance, that German troops withdrew from southwestern France, ending the occupation.

Return To Domme

Domme was founded as a fortified town by Philip the Bold of France in 1281 and its walls were completed in the first decade of the 14th century, just in time to host some of the Templars imprisoned by the king when he seized the assets of the wealthy brotherhood of knights.  Mrs THC and I have found Domme, on our visits and stays over the years, to be more hospitable than the Templars experienced, so we are happy after three years of no international traveling to finally return.

Perched on a cliff about 400 feet above the Dordogne River (and about a three hour drive from Bordeaux, where we landed), the town retains most of its walls with driving access only possible through two narrow gates.  Within the river valley and surrounded by hills and cliffs for miles, this area has been much fought over, particularly during the Hundred Years War, when England controlled much of the valley and later during the late 16th century Wars of Religion between Protestants and Catholics.

Today Domme is a quiet, small town (the commune, which includes the walled town has a population of only a thousand) and tourist attraction, those less heavily congested that some other points in the region.

Some photos from a walk this evening:

Down this street you can see one of the town gates:

This is the church on the main square.  The original church was demolished after the Protestants captured the town in 1589.  This photo was taken as the bell was ringing announcing it was 7 pm. 

The next two are of street scenes:

This is the Esplanade which overlooks the river:

Looking across the river and past the monument to Jacques de Maleville, a famous native of the town. 

Hard to get up that cliff.

The Dordogne River Valley.  A few miles downstream among those hills are the castles of Beynac and Castelnaud of which I've written before.

Mr THC

Return From Domme

We returned from our month in Dordogne about ten days ago.  A last tranche of photos.

One of the two gates through which you can enter Domme by vehicle.

 

Panorama from the park on the north side of the town, overlooking the Dordogne River.  Location is a two minute walk from our rented house.

 

View back to Domme from village of La Roque Gageac.  This gives a good perspective of the heights on which the town is located.  The photo above was taken from a point about center where the elongated structure appears along the wall.  To the right is the town park.  Our house was located right behind it.  To the left is the center of the town.

 

Section of early 14th century wall on south side of Domme.

 

The reality of everyday life; disposing of trash at the bins just outside the town walls.  We were here every other day. 

Beynac & Castelnaud

THC and the Mrs recently returned from a trip to France, having spent a week in Paris and another week in Perigord.  Since THC's anthropological study from his last research trip to France still awaits publication in the prestigious Journale du Voyages a la Recherche D'oeuvres L'Objects Extraordinaire (see Paris Anthropologie for more details) he will cover his latest adventure in a series of travelogue posts.

Perigord is an ancient county in France that aligns itself neatly with the current day Department of Dordogne in the southwest, about 100 miles inland from Bordeaux.

(from Dordogne-vacation.com)

The area we visited is referred to as Perigord Noir, because of the many black chesnut trees, and is in the southeast corner of the Department.  It is very hilly, with cliffs along the two major river valleys (the Dordogne and the Vezere) dotted with small villages, towns and castles along narrow windy roads.  We stayed in the small bastide town of Domme, situated on a cliff about 400 feet above the Dordogne.  The bastides were built by French and English kings between the 13th and 14th centuries and designed as defensive bastions to provide security for local farmers.

The need for the bastides goes to the history of Perigord.  Today the area is picturesque and prosperous as a vacation area but most of its history is pretty dismal.  After the collapse of Roman rule in the area during the 5th century, the region descended into darkness for several centuries.  When it comes back to light it is in the midst of several centuries of conflict between the English and French crowns culminating in the Hundred Years War (1337-1453).  During much of the period between the 12th and 15th centuries, the Dordogne River was the dividing line between the two kingdoms, with the French on the north side and English on the south.  During this period the peasants were subject to pillaging, looting and worse from both sides.  In the midst of this also occurred the bloody suppression of the heretic Cathars who had many strongholds in the region.

A few decades after the end of the Hundred Years War, the religious wars began between Catholics and Protestants and again this region saw a great deal of violence between adherents of both sects.  Once that was finished in the early 17th century, the region reverted to its normal state of poverty, albeit more peaceful.  While the 19th century saw some prosperity the slow economic decline soon began again and in the decade after the Second War War, there was large scale migration from the region by younger folks to new jobs in the growing industrial regions of France.

It was only with the decision of the French Government in the 1960s to encourage the growth in the region as a tourist center via the use of subsidies and tax incentives for second homeowners, as well as the reconstruction of the medieval center of the town of Sarlat near the Dordogne that the fortunes of the region revived.  Today it is a popular destination for tourists across Western Europe, and particularly Britain.

For orientation, Domme is in the lower center of the map,  Sarlat is in the upper center.  The Dordogne River flows from right to left through the center.   On bends in the river about five miles downstream are the castles of Castlenaud and then Beynac.  Castelnaud was occupied by the English during most of the Hundred Years War while Beynac was ruled by the French.

Beynac from the south side of the Dordogne.  The village of Beynac is at the foot of the cliff upon which the castle sits.

The castle as you approach from the north side.

Now it's looking more formidable!

From the castle overlooking the river.

Looking down on the village.

View from an arrow-slit.

Meeting hall in the castle.

15th century frescoes.

And now on to Castlenaud:

From the river.

Looking around from the castle:

 Beynac from Castlenaud.

My little Trebuchet.

Let's stop for lunch!

Driving In Domme

Domme is completely surrounded by its medieval walls and cliffs so its footprint has not expanded in seven centuries which presents a challenge for driving.  To enable the town to function most streets are one way.  The four short videos below document the route we had to take from entering the town to getting to our house.  NOTE:  Videos may not display properly on mobile devices.

#1:  You see the remnants of the town wall and then we drive through the narrow gate.  Our house is on the same street only a block and a half further uphill but it is one way in the wrong direction.  Instead we have to take a right which eventually brings us to one of the two main squares in town.

#2:  We drive through the square and take a right which takes us past the other gate into town.  We then start going uphill towards the upper part of town and the cliffs overlooking the Dordogne River Valley.

#3:  At the upper town we turn left and drive past the hospital.

#4:  We drive through the other main square in town and then turn left and head downhill towards the gate through which we originally entered.  At the end you can see our house directly ahead.  You'll also hear Mrs THC mutter "oh rats" because she's noticed that on the little side street to the right the parking spot we usually tried to get was already taken.

Domme

The town in Perigord we stayed in during our recent visit (see Beynac & Castelnaud for a general description of the region).  Built in the late 13th century as a fortified town it was the location of much fighting during the French-English wars of the 13th through 15th centuries and the Religious Wars of the following century.  The small house we rented was originally built in the 14th century.

Panorama view from Domme over the Dordogne River Valley:

Around town:

Our house and street:

Above, from our terrace.

Our favorite restaurant: