by Helen Watts
The baker and the boy lay there, in their tiny, pungent hideout, too terrified to move while the two soldiers casually shared a cigarette. Then at last they could hear the sound of their boots retreating up the garden path, and their voices getting quieter as they moved back towards the house.
‘We’d better lie low here for a while, Alfie,’ Benoit said, wiping the sweat from his eyes with a trembling hand. ‘It’s too dangerous to move at the moment. Let’s wait and see what happens. We’re well hidden here.’
Alfred shifted his weight, turning onto his back to make himself a little more comfortable, and wiped his hands on his trousers to remove the gritty earth that clung to his damp palms. As he did so, he thought how his mother would have scolded him had she seen him doing that, how she would have sent him straight to the sink to clean them with soap and water. He wished he could be with her now, and a tear began to trickle down his cheek.
16: The Separation
Sylvie was terrified. Why had the Germans suddenly decided to separate the men from the women and children? What were they going to do with the men? And what about Christelle, Sabine and Alfred? Were they still safe at school?
Until now, she had felt alone in her terror of the Germans, but as she joined the cluster of anxious women and children being herded over to the left-hand side of the fairground, she could see an increasing sense of panic among the others. The sound of gunshots was getting more frequent and seemed to be coming from all directions now, and even over the increasing noise levels among the crowd in the fairground, they could all hear the occasional scream.
The soldiers, at first calm and composed, were now edgy and becoming increasingly unpleasant as they barked their orders. Without showing any compassion, they cut through the family groups trying to stay huddled together until the last moment, and sorted husband from wife, sister from brother, boy from man. Once divided, the various groups were herded roughly away, hurried along with shouts of ‘Vite! Vite!’
Children, distressed at being separated from their fathers, were starting to wail, and here and there arguments broke out over who should go where or who should stay with whom. Sylvie saw Madame Renard, a teacher from the boys’ school, bravely standing up to a stony-faced young officer who was trying to drag her sixteen-year-old son, Pierre, from her arms.
‘He is old enough!’ shouted the German. ‘He goes with the men.’
Pierre’s large physical frame masked the intelligence of a small child. His mind was irrevocably damaged by a difficult and traumatic birth. Yet although his tiny premature body had been so tragically starved of oxygen, the baby he grew into was lavished with love. The Renards had never once allowed their son’s limitations to spoil his enjoyment of life, and they had come to Oradour believing it to be the perfect place for their son to grow up, a place where he would be valued, welcomed and included in the community. Now Madame Renard was doing what she did best, fighting to protect her son, and even the SS officer seemed to sense the futility of battling against her.
Pierre Renard was the only boy over fifteen who was allowed to stay with his mother.
‘Maman! Maman!’
Sylvie nearly collapsed with relief as Christelle and Sabine rushed into her arms. ‘Oh, my beautiful girls. My babies.’ She kissed them on the tops of their heads and hugged them close. Sabine was shaking like a leaf.
‘It’s alright now, my darlings. We are together,’ Sylvie murmured into their hair, pushing aside her own doubts in order to comfort her children.
‘But Maman, we saw such terrible things,’ sobbed Christelle. ‘An old man, the Germans shot him right there in the street because he couldn’t walk fast enough.’
Sylvie tried to quell the panic rising in her throat.
‘Girls, where’s Alfred?’
Christelle looked about her. ‘He’s escaped,’ she whispered. ‘He wouldn’t come with us. He wanted to keep our family pact.’
Sylvie felt a rush of longing for her son. Her wonderful, adorable little Alfie. God bless him. For once he had done as he was told.
‘Where’s Papa?’ Sabine suddenly asked, lifting her head from her mother’s chest.
‘The Germans are making all the men and the older boys line up over there. Look.’
On the other side of the fairground, the soldiers were now assembling the men and older boys into some kind of order. They were directing them to sit down on the grass in three lines, facing the wall.
‘I don’t like this,’ Sylvie said shakily. ‘I’ve got to find out what’s happening. Christelle, sit with the others.’
Sylvie disentangled herself from her children and cautiously approached the soldier who had agreed to let Pierre stay with his mother. At least she knew he could speak a little French, and she hoped he would be as lenient with her as he had been with Madame Renard. Having finished organising the men and women into groups, he was now standing guard over the women, holding his rifle.
‘Excuse me,’ Sylvie said quietly. ‘Please can you tell me why we have to be separated from our husbands?’
‘Major Dietrich’s orders,’ replied the soldier curtly.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Sylvie, wondering how far she dare push it. ‘But I don’t understand why. No one has asked to see our papers yet.’
‘Papers are irrelevant now. Something far more important has come up. The Major believes that somewhere in Oradour there’s a secret arms store. So we are carrying out a thorough search. It will be better if the women and children wait in the church while that is done.’
‘And the men?’ enquired Sylvie.
‘They are to be questioned.’ The soldier leant forwards and leered at Sylvie. He was close enough for her to feel his hot breath on her cheek. ‘Now, is there anything else, Madame, or are you satisfied?’
Sylvie started to back away. ‘No… I mean, yes. Thank you. Thank you for telling me.’
Sylvie’s information seemed to calm some of the women and children around her, but she was still convinced something was very wrong. She had seen something in the soldier’s eyes. He had been lying to her.
A sense of dread was rapidly building up inside her, quickening her heartbeat, and when she saw Major Dietrich striding back into the fairground, ready to direct operations once again, her chest clamped in panic and she found it difficult to breathe.
That was when she heard Dietrich giving the order for the women and children to be led away to the church.
This is it, she thought. We’re being taken away so we don’t see them all getting shot.
She made to break out of the line. Dietrich saw her and raised his hand, ready to strike, but Christelle caught the back of her dress and pulled her back.
‘No, Maman! They will kill you if you cause trouble, like that poor old man!’
Sylvie looked into her daughter’s eyes. Her heart was breaking but she knew that Christelle was right.
‘When did you get so grown up?’ she said, framing Christelle’s beautiful oval face with her hands. ‘Your father would be so proud of you.’
Gripping one another’s hands, Sylvie and Christelle slipped back into line behind Sabine, Louis and Paulette, and the long line of women and children began to file out of the fairground, frantically scanning the rows of men as they went, in the hope of making reassuring eye contact with their husbands and sons.
Sylvie spotted Leon. He was sitting in the middle of the three rows next to Dr Depaul, his shoulders slumped, resting his forehead in his hands. She willed him to raise his head, for his eyes to meet hers, but he was too lost in his thoughts, in his desperation. As she turned the corner and left the fairground, she saw her husband’s shoulders beginning to shake.
‘Au revoir, Papa!’ Paulette called out cheerfully, walking backwards so that she could wave to her father as she left.
Watching the little girl waving so pathetically to her father, Major Dietrich sniggered. Of course, the father wasn’t even looking. How naïve she was to expect him to care. But then, this whole vi
llage seemed ridiculously naïve. They had been so easy to convince, so quick to comply, and he despised them for hanging onto every word of their foolish, jumped-up fat cat of a mayor. What good had that done them? Did they really think that all this was just about a search for weapons, or that an SS commander of his experience really believed they had the capability to hide someone like Thomas Klausner in their pitiable little village? Good God, how he hated everything about these people and their insignificant, cosy lives. He didn’t care if they were innocent.
Part 5
Saturday 10 June, 1944 (Late Afternoon)
17: To the Church
Sunday 11 June 1944 was meant to be a day of celebration in Oradour. The Corpus Christi procession was all planned and the whole village had been looking forward to the festivities.
After the Mass, the consecrated water that represented Christ’s sacrifice was to be carried through the streets on a cart, shaded from the sun by an elaborate canopy as it wound its way round the village.
Accompanying the priests, who carried banners dedicated to their patron saints, would be the children, dressed in their best clothes and bearing their colourful flower garlands.
The procession which now wound its way through Oradour to the church was far from cheerful, and the drained, pale complexions of the frightened women and children were a stark contrast to the gaudy reds, pinks and purples of the decorative flowers which lined their route.
Not wanting to invite any trouble from their grave-faced guards, the group had at first fallen into an accepting silence, broken only now and then by a muffled whimper or the kind of involuntary sniff that follows an outburst of tears, and which was framed by the clunking of the children’s wooden-soled clogs, as they trudged out of the fairground, past the well, and down Rue de la Cimetière. But after a short distance, one of the soldiers ordered the children to sing a song.
‘It will cheer everyone up,’ he laughed.
A few worried little voices struck up the first few lines of the hymn they had been practising for the Mass the next day, but the children’s enthusiasm soon waned, their voices trailed off, and silence descended once again on the procession.
The homes they passed were eerily empty. Doors and windows hung open, shops were deserted, customers long gone. As she passed the cobbler’s store, Sylvie remembered the last time she had been in there, just a few days ago, to buy new clogs for Louis. He had been growing so quickly since his fourth birthday and it seemed only five minutes since he had needed his last pair. Monsieur Babin had been so kind. He knew Sylvie and Leon hadn’t got much money and had pretended the clogs were on sale so as not to embarrass her by offering her any charity. Gratefully, she had bought the shoes at the discount price, but had asked Leon to make sure he gave the cobbler the biggest loaf of bread on the shelf the next time he came into the bakery.
They soon reached the church, where Audrey Rousseau had been arranging flowers earlier. Half-trimmed flowers and pieces of ribbon were scattered along the pews as they filed inside, and the first few women to enter had to move aside several buckets of blooms to make room for their prams.
‘Be careful with those,’ screeched Audrey, as she rushed over to pick up a bucket of white roses which had been knocked over, spilling water across the stone flagstones. ‘Those are from the Mayor’s garden!’
The young mother who had caused the accident looked at her incredulously. ‘I hardly think a bit of spilled water and a few scattered petals matter now, do they?’ she snapped. ‘My baby is only seven months old. What’s going to happen to him? He doesn’t need to hear you shouting!’
Sylvie, who had just come through the door with her four children, felt sorry for Audrey and went to take her hand. She knew that the other woman’s outburst was just a reaction to the dreadful situation they were all in. She smiled at the young mother and took Audrey to one side.
‘It’s all right, Audrey,’ she said comfortingly. ‘I’ll help you tidy all this up later, when the Germans have gone. We’ll finish the flowers together as we’d planned. When we’ve done, the church will be more beautiful than it’s ever been before.’
‘Thank you, Sylvie,’ said Audrey, smiling weakly. ‘You are a good friend.’
Sylvie watched Audrey joining her teenage daughter, Alita, in one of the stalls at the front usually reserved for the choir. How she wished that what she had said were true, that she and Audrey could finish the afternoon arranging flowers. In truth, she doubted that they would even see the end of the afternoon, but she knew she had to keep some hope alive. She had to stay focused and keep her mind on practical things, on ways to keep the children safe, on looking for opportunities to escape.
Audrey was probably wise to grab a seat now, she thought, as the church filled up rapidly behind them. There were already hundreds of women and children inside with many more still crowded on the gravelled yard, being ushered in by the SS troops like guests at a macabre wedding.
Finding a quiet corner by the altar, Sylvie and the children crouched down and sat on the cold stone floor. She looked up to the high vaulted ceiling, dappled with the sunlight that filtered through the tall, arched windows above the altar and, not for the first time that day, Sylvie began to pray.
As he lay flat on his back, sandwiched in the cramped and musty gap between Benoit’s sweaty body and the hard, ridged corrugated iron which formed their shelter, Alfred looked up at the narrow shafts of sunlight beaming through the tiny holes in the metal. He could see specks of dust floating about, caught in the sunbeam, and he watched as they danced around when he blew gently upwards.
He had lost track of how long he and Benoit had been lying there, but he guessed it had to be well over half an hour. A couple of times he had whispered to Benoit to ask if he thought it was safe to move, but the baker had shaken his head, replying that he could still hear too much movement out there in the streets.
Alfred had strained his ears to listen, too. Benoit was right, there was still a lot of shouting – all in German, which he couldn’t understand – and now he could hear a lot of marching, too. In fact it sounded like hundreds of people, walking away from where he and Benoit hid, not closer… and they were moving slowly, rhythmically, wooden shoes tapping on the cobbles like the gentle beat of a funeral drum.
Now and again he could hear an outbreak of singing. Children’s voices. They would burst into song and then gradually trail off, as if they kept forgetting the words.
Alfred could hear dogs barking in the distance, too, and his thoughts turned to Bobby. He prayed that the little dog was staying out of trouble. Hopefully he would be reunited safely with Patric by now, basking in a successful mission to clinch the deal on Philippe’s marriage proposal to Nadia.
Alfred suddenly felt stifled, stuck there in hiding. He wanted to keep moving. He needed to find his family and he was sure they would be on their way to the cemetery by now.
He made up his mind. He would listen out for a sign, something which told him it was safe – or the right time – to make his move. Then he would be off, with or without Benoit.
18: To the Barns
Leon was distraught. As he dropped to the ground to take his place in the row of men, all forced to sit facing the north wall like a gang of condemned criminals, he put his head in his hands. He felt ashamed.
How could he have been so naïve as to think that he and Sylvie and the children could sneak off from the fairground? How could he have let his family down so badly with such a pathetic, desperate plan?
He had failed. Failed to protect his family. Failed to listen to Sylvie. He had no one but himself to blame. He had become too content in Oradour, trusting and complacent. He hadn’t wanted to believe that their perfect life in Oradour could ever change, and so he had refused to listen to Sylvie or his own conscience, and refused to believe that they were in trouble. And now he had put all his family in danger. All except Alfred.
Leon wondered what had happened to his son. As he had been standing there just
now in the crowd with the rest of the men, he had seen Christelle and Sabine running to Sylvie and the little ones on the other side of the fairground. But there was no sign of Alfred.
There had been gunshots. Had Alfred been killed? Leon had tried to read his wife’s expression, but it was so hard to see her face clearly from where he stood. He could see her hugging the girls, kissing their hair. But he couldn’t be sure whether Christelle and Sabine had brought good news or bad.
Yet somehow, something told Leon that his son was still alive. Alfred knew the streets and fields around Oradour better than anyone else thanks to all his adventures. He spent hours out and about with that little dog of Patric’s. If anyone was going to escape from these Germans, it would be Alfie. Leon smiled. He would be willing to bet that the little rascal was there in the woods behind the cemetery right now, waiting for them.
And it was that image that stayed with Leon as he sat there facing the wall. Little Alfred, sitting on the ground at the foot of his favourite tree – the one with the hole in it, big enough to climb in. What if they never reached him? How long would he wait?
As he pictured his son’s earnest face, his gorgeous floppy red hair, Leon lowered his head so that no one could see the tears fall from his downcast eyes.
‘That’s it, then. They’ve gone,’ said Bertrand Depaul, who had found a place in the line next to him. ‘Do you think we’ll ever see them again?’
Leon looked up in dismay. He had been so lost in his own thoughts and misery that he had failed to see the last few women and children being led out of the fairground. He had missed Sylvie. He hoped she had not seen him sitting there feeling so sorry for himself.
‘God only knows, Doctor. But it’s not looking good.’