ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE

Lot 957
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Estimation :
500 - 600 EUR
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Result : 2 600EUR
ORADOUR-SUR-GLANE
MANUSCRIPT autograph with L.A.S. d'envoi par Simone LEFÈVRE, Limoges 3 July 1944; 4 pages in-4. Rare and precious period testimony on the Oradour massacre. The manuscript is entitled "Account of the events that took place on Saturday 10-6-44 at Oradour-sur-Glane". Simone Lefèvre, born in 1919, at the time a social worker, worked in Limoges. She relates the Oradour massacre, perpetrated by an S.S. division, using in part the terms of a typed report at Limoges on June 17 (to be published in August by Témoignage chrétien). "On Saturday 10-6 the large town of Oradour s/Glane, 21 km N.W. from Limoges was the scene of a hallucinating tragedy! The Germans completely sacked and burned the village, massacred all the inhabitants in conditions that the imagination can scarcely conceive of. [...] It was about 1.30 pm. The inhabitants were peacefully going about their usual business. Suddenly several German armored cars and trucks carrying a few hundred S.S. belonging to the "Führer's" division burst in. ...] An officer went to the town hall and ordered the mayor to gather the entire population on the fairgrounds. ... The men were separated. They had four barns emptied of their contents. ...] The women and children were taken to the church, where a number of boys and girls were already present. ...] Then began the horrible massacre. On a given order, the SS, without a word, began to fire bursts of machine-guns into the barns. Where they were parked, the men shouted at each other. In the church, two machine guns pointed near the entrance fired at the hundreds of women and children crammed into the narrow enclosure. When the massacre was over, the SS began to set fire to the village. All the houses, all the buildings, one after the other, were sprinkled with incendiary products, probably phosphorus, grenades, incendiary plates were thrown everywhere." Following this testimony, she expresses, on the 4th page, her distress
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