The massacre, along with other covert operations by the Vichy regime, such as sending 76,000 French Jews to the Nazis for extermination, live on in the French memory. The massacre is a lasting reminder of what atrocities the Germans committed during the Occupation, and how bitterly the French resented the Germans and anyone who sympathized or worked with them. The Vichy regime may have worked with the Nazis simply as a matter of survival, but the French never forgot their duplicity and never want to forget all of the things the Nazis did while they held France.
Oradour is really the culmination of France's Occupation and her hatred of Germany. It is easy to see why the event has become such a rallying cry for the French Occupation. Even worse, the Germans never tried the soldiers responsible for the murders. The French did hold trials for some of the soldiers in 1953, and all were found guilty. Public sentiment was divided over the verdicts, most of which condemned the men to hard labor rather than death. The fact that the people were so divided over the trial is another indication of how Oradour fits into the Vichy Syndrome. The Syndrome only grew after France regained her freedom from Germany. In fact, after the war, France was on the brink of civil war for many years, and factions in the country simply could not get along. Some French thought the sentences to the soldiers were too severe, while others thought they were not severe enough. Most of the soldiers claimed they had been conscripted into the German army without their consent, and so, the French government finally issued pardons to all the participants, unleashing even more protests and controversy. The country was divided during the Occupation, and it remained divided after the war. Oradour is just a very vivid symbol of this division and the inability of the French people to accept what had happened to them, and then move away from it toward a common goal. The Vichy Syndrome seemed to have France in a death...
The factions working inside France, both Nazi and Resistance came to battle in the massacre, even though the Nazis attacked the wrong town and there was no evidence of Resistance efforts in Oradour. The massacre represents the division in the country, and Frenchman fighting Frenchman, at a time when it would have made better sense for the French to work together solidly as a team. After the war, the French people refused to rebuild the town on the site, and have made it a memorial site, a lasting memory to the horrors of the German Occupation. Another Oradour was built a short distance away, and some of the survivors moved back there when the new town was completed. Some people believe the French will never forget or forgive the German Occupation of their country, and Oradour and its martyrs are a lasting and very visual reminder of that terrible time in French history. This Vichy Syndrome lives on still today, and it may never heal itself in the French people.
References
McNeill, a. And Kemp, L. (2003). Occupied France: Commemorating the Deportation. [Online] at http://new.filter.ac.uk/database/getinsight.php?id=51&seq=228.
Rousso, H. (1991). The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Williams, M. (2007). In a Ruined State. [Online} at http://www.oradour.info/ruined/chapter2.htm.
Henry Rousso. (1991). The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Anthony McNeill and Leigh Kemp. (2003). Occupied France: Commemorating the Deportation. [Online] at http://new.filter.ac.uk/database/getinsight.php?id=51&seq=228.
Michael Williams. (2007). In a Ruined State. [Online} at http://www.oradour.info/ruined/chapter2.htm.
