By Stéphane Michonneau, Paris-Est Créteil University / CRHEC and Babeth Robert, Director of the Memory Centre of Oradour
While working on the emblematic site of Oradour-sur-Glane, researchers involved in the ANR Ruines project explored the phenomenon of “martyred villages” found in several European countries, including Spain, Italy, Greece, and the Czech Republic. The term refers, sometimes in an official capacity, to localities that experienced mass massacres and extensive destruction of infrastructure, often affecting small, peripheral communities. This contrasts with “martyred cities” which were obliterated through large-scale bombings. Questions raised about the emergence and use of this category led to the launch of the “VILMA” research project in 2022, structured around five key themes: 1. The cultural and political construction of the contemporary “martyred village” as a category embodying collective recognition, rooted in the late 19th century. 2. The management of destruction’s remnants and the transmission of memories, reflecting the material and community reconstruction. 3. The political investment in these localities, including monumentalisation and commemorations. 4. The diversity and challenges of heritage-making processes. 5. The networks and exchanges established between European “martyred villages”.
This collaborative research began with five exploratory seminars held between February 2022 and May 2023 in Oradour-sur-Glane, La Chapelle and Vassieux-en-Vercors (France), Marzabotto (Italy), Lidice (Czech Republic), and Distomo (Greece). It also included studies of Belchite and Corbera d’Ebre (Spain). These seminars combined site visits, meetings with scientists, and discussions with local memory policy stakeholders. A mid-term conference held in Oradour and Limoges from 22 to 24 May 2024 brought together researchers and stakeholders from various sites, laying the foundations for a European project.
Before addressing the heritage challenges of these sites, it is important to highlight the variety of atrocities and destruction they suffered in vastly different wartime contexts. Lidice stands out as an exception: its destruction in 1942 was a calculated act of retribution for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak resistance fighters. Executed methodically, the process of destruction was more systematic, resulting in the complete obliteration of the village, including its cemetery and surrounding landscape. Elsewhere, atrocities were concentrated over shorter periods and affected smaller areas, particularly in Oradour and Distomo, where most of the killings occurred within a single day and were focused in the village centre. Finally, it should be noted that victims were not always limited to the inhabitants of the local community but could also include combatants, refugees, and residents of neighbouring hamlets. As for the destruction, it consistently involved looting, pillaging, and burning but sometimes only affected part of the infrastructure, as in Distomo.
In Oradour, on 10 June 1944, soldiers of the SS Das Reich division arrived near the village around 2 pm. They encircled it, gathered the population from within the village and its immediate vicinity, and killed all those they found, burning the bodies. A total of 643 civilians – children, women, and men – were killed. The village was then looted and set ablaze. The soldiers who committed this massacre had been operating for weeks along the western edge of the Massif Central, conducting numerous actions against the resistance. It was in this context that they carried out the largest massacre of civilians in France during the Second World War, in terms of the number of victims. Among the 643 victims, the majority were long-term residents of the commune, whose families had lived there for generations. Others were newer residents, refugees who had arrived since the war’s outbreak. Among them were a significant number of Mosellans, as well as children entrusted to families in what seemed a safer location than a major city. Others included Spanish Republicans who had fled Franco’s Spain, Jewish individuals (both French and from Central and Eastern Europe), and people who happened to be in Oradour on the afternoon of 10 June 1944, such as passing cyclists.
The materiality of these massacres is embodied in the ruins, which remain a prominent and distinctive feature, although their visibility varies today. The site of Oradour, where ruins extend over 10 hectares, is unique in this regard, especially as it also preserves artefacts recovered from the debris. In contrast, while the ruins at Belchite are similarly extensive, they have not been subjected to any coherent conservation policy. Thus, the general use of the term “martyred village”, with its heroic and victim-focused connotations, reflects a unifying interpretation of diverse realities.
Due to this diversity of circumstances and the political developments of the post-war period, the monumentalisation of “martyred villages” has progressed unevenly and at different paces across regions. Some cases saw early monumentalisation, such as Oradour, which was classified as a Historic Monument as early as 1946; Lidice, which was immediately and enduringly elevated as a national symbol; and Belchite, which was quickly appropriated by Franco’s regime as a showcase of its propaganda. In contrast, sites like Marzabotto, Distomo, or Corbera experienced later processes of recognition. The fluctuating political use of these sites has led to periods of intense commemoration, alternating with moments of deliberate amnesia (as in Greece between 1949 and 1977) or relative neglect (as with Lidice after 1989). While the site of Lidice, elevated as a symbol during the communist era, has seen renewed political interest in recent years, other sites have faced different challenges. In Marzabotto, for example, the centralisation of memory in the village (crypt-memorial, museum) long overlooked the scattered traces in the Montesole hills, where much of the massacre took place. In Oradour, the “martyred village” became a pilgrimage site as early as late 1944, attracting many visitors. General de Gaulle’s speech during his visit in March 1945 confirmed its status as a national symbol. Official visits increased, and the village was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour. In 1947, Vincent Auriol laid the first stone for the reconstruction of a new Oradour-sur-Glane beside the ruins of the original village. A turning point in the political significance of the site came in 1953, with the Oradour military trial held in Bordeaux. While the verdict condemned all the accused, Parliament passed an amnesty law days later for 13 Alsatians forcibly conscripted into the Das Reich division. This law was not well received in Oradour, which returned its decorations in protest. The National Association of the Families of the Martyrs of Oradour-sur-Glane (ANFMOG) rejected the memorial built by the state to house the victims’ remains and erected its own ossuary in the communal cemetery. It took approximately 30 years for relations between the village and the state to normalise. Since then, the political reinvestment in the site has been actively maintained. Two French Presidents, François Hollande in 2013 and Emmanuel Macron in 2024, visited Oradour alongside their German counterparts – an unprecedented act.
The forms of monumentalisation reflect a shared European commemorative culture, including cemeteries, necropolises, ossuaries, and war memorials. Human remains left on site, and the tributes paid to them, contribute to the construction of the “martyred village” concept by metonymy. These remains are, in some sense, incorporated into the ruins, even when later relocated to the villages’ peripheries. This transfer of sacrality varies: ruins may be preserved (as in Belchite) and protected (as in Oradour and Corbera d’Ebre), rebuilt (as in Lidice), rediscovered and exhumed belatedly (as in Marzabotto), or erased (as in Vassieux and Distomo, where new villages were rebuilt on the original sites).
The heritage preservation of these sites, closely tied to memorial tourism, adopts different approaches depending on the context. At Oradour, with approximately 300,000 visitors annually, it focuses on memory and history. In Lidice, it incorporates an artistic and cultural dimension, including a collection of artworks. At Corbera, an outdoor sculpture museum complements the site. In Distomo, an ethnographic museum is part of the offering. In Vassieux and Marzabotto-Montesole, located within natural parks, naturalist and memorial registers intertwine in defining contemporary heritage values. At Belchite, the preservation of the few remaining ruins accompanies recent tourism developments, currently attracting around 40,000 visitors annually. In Oradour, however, the fragility of its ruined heritage is threatened by tourist activity, although the Ministry of Culture is reportedly increasing its investment in conservation efforts, supported by a subscription campaign launched by the Heritage Foundation. Ultimately, heritage preservation has clearly emerged as a shared concern since the 1980s, even as the political use of “martyred villages” as grand national symbols has diminished. These sites, once heavily mobilised in the immediate post-war period, continue to be reinvested in various ways today.