One Day in Oradour (11 page)

Dietrich stopped, observing carefully the shockwave which ran through the crowd. Some people gasped, some looked about them in confusion, others stood completely still, too stunned to move. There was a sudden hum of whispering and murmuring. Sylvie and Leon reached for one another’s hands.

Dietrich continued. ‘If anyone is involved in this terrible crime, or has any information at all to share, then they are advised to step forward now. I am giving you all one minute.’

Dietrich looked at his watch, then jumped down confidently from the jeep. While the seconds ticked away he spoke intently into the ear of one of his platoon
leaders, who immediately marched off towards the platoons which had completed their initial search of the village and were awaiting their next orders.

Fifty-eight seconds, fifty-nine, sixty, and nothing.

Dietrich leapt back up onto his makeshift podium and opened his mouth to address the crowd again, but before he uttered a word he was interrupted by Henri Depaul. This time it was the Mayor who raised his hand to ask for silence, before he called out, ‘Wait. Please, Major. I request permission to speak on behalf of my people.’

Dietrich appeared irritated and for a moment Henri thought that he was about to refuse his request, but then the German spread his hands, turning his palms upwards to indicate that the Mayor was allowed to speak.

‘It doesn’t matter how many minutes you give us, Major, no one here will have anything to tell you. Because Oradour is innocent. We have no connection with the hostage-taking. No links to the Resistance. We hide nothing.’

Dietrich’s eyes narrowed.

‘I see. And you think that I will believe you? That in the midst of all the Resistance attacks and in spite of reports to the contrary, your village has no involvement? No secret weapons stores? No Resistance sympathisers?
No knowledge of the whereabouts of the hostage?’

The Mayor shook his head, dismayed by the German’s change of tone. ‘I give you my word.’

Dietrich shook his head and gave a mocking laugh. ‘Oh, you will give me more than that, Monsieur le Maire. You will give me thirty hostages. Thirty reasons for the Resistance to come forward. Thirty bits of bait to entice those cowardly little mice out of their holes.’

Henri looked horrified and swallowed hard. ‘Thirty?’

‘Yes,’ said Dietrich, jumping down again from the jeep to speak right into the face of the panic-stricken Mayor. ‘Thirty of your finest citizens, and you can choose every last one of them.’

Cries of anguish went up from the crowd, pitying the poor Mayor. Normally so self-controlled, he was now completely perplexed, standing there looking wildly about him. How could he possibly make such an appalling choice?

The first to Henri’s side was Patric, who took his father’s elbow and spoke urgently in his ear. Henri nodded his head, said a few words in return, then put his arms around his son and hugged him tightly. He composed himself, then turned back to face Dietrich. He cleared his throat, and made his offer.

‘You ask the impossible of me. I will not put thirty of my citizens in danger. But I will offer myself and
my four sons as your hostages. Patric here is a well-respected local businessman. My eldest son Bertrand is a doctor and a man of great status in the community. Eriq is my secretary and my other son, Oliver, is the village grocer. Five of us. All good men. We would provide you with all the bargaining power you would need.’

Dietrich laughed. He was like a lion toying with a mouse. ‘Your selflessness and courage is admirable, sir. But I will not allow your family to make martyrs of yourselves.’

‘And I cannot play games with people’s lives,’ said Henri, his desperation turning to frustration. ‘I will not choose who stays and who goes.’

‘Then the negotiation is over!’ Dietrich shouted, instantly turning his back on the Mayor to storm off and speak with his men. The stunned crowd interpreted Dietrich’s reaction as pure anger but, had they been able to see his face, they would have witnessed the smug, self-satisfied smile that curled on his lips.

For Dietrich, everything was going exactly according to plan.

Without hesitation, Dietrich summoned his platoon leaders. They were to meet him in the village hall in five minutes. They were about to receive a new brief.
The moment Dietrich departed, the noise level in the fairground rose to fever pitch as endless questions buzzed in the air. What did this mean? What was going to happen next? Why did the Germans think Oradour was involved in the hostage taking? Didn’t they realise that they had made a terrible mistake?

For Sylvie and Leon, the failed negotiation between the German commander and their Mayor was a crucial turning point. When they saw Dietrich storming off, they looked at one another and instantly knew they were thinking the same thing. It was time to get out, time to keep to their pact and make their way, no matter how long it took them, to the woods behind the cemetery.

‘Come on, children,’ Leon whispered to Louis and Paulette. ‘We’re going to play a little game. It’s a bit like hide and seek. We’re going to try to find Alfred, Christelle and Sabine. But you must be really quiet and not tell anyone where we’re going. It’s a secret game. No one must suspect that we are playing it. Yes?’

Louis and Paulette nodded in agreement, their wide, innocent eyes filled with excitement.

Taking their children’s hands, Leon and Sylvie started to edge their way cautiously through the crowd towards the well.

‘If anyone asks, just say we’re trying to get a better view of what’s going on,’ Leon said softly into Sylvie’s
ear. ‘Just walk slowly. We mustn’t run until we get out of sight round the corner into Rue de la Cimetière. We mustn’t draw attention to ourselves.’

Sylvie smiled nervously at her husband. She could sense that under his cool exterior he was really as scared as she was and she thought how much she loved this man, who wanted so much to take care of his family and keep them safe.

The meeting between Dietrich and his platoon leaders in the village hall lasted only ten minutes but by the end of it, no one was in any doubt what Dietrich’s real plan was.

‘Our orders were to ask for hostages, and we have,’ said Dietrich, pacing back and forth. ‘They had their chance to pick their victims, but they have refused. Now we can punish them all.’

‘But what about the search, sir?’ one officer asked, not alone in his confusion.

‘There’s nothing to find,’ spat Dietrich. ‘Klausner is already dead!’

Seeing the soldiers’ confusion, he explained, ‘My informants in St Junien confirmed it. He was burned alive – a hero of Germany, brutally murdered! His body was found in an abandoned barn outside Limoges.’

The men exchanged silent glances.

Dietrich continued. ‘This is our opportunity to get a grip on the Resistance once and for all. Oradour will be Major Klausner’s revenge. A lesson to the Resistance all over France. A masterpiece!’ Dietrich stared into each of his men’s eyes as he walked among them. ‘Are you with me, or not?’

With no one daring to refuse, Dietrich delivered his new orders swiftly and refused to take any questions. If any of their men wavered, he said, the platoon leaders were to remind them what the Resistance were capable of. They were to think about Major Klausner and what had nearly happened to Storm Leader Goth. This was their chance to be heroes. To defend their fellow SS, to show their dedication to their country. There were to be no prisoners, no exceptions… and there was to be no mercy.

No one seemed to notice Leon and Sylvie leading their children surreptitiously to the back of the crowd, and they reached the well with relative ease. From there, it was just a few more metres to the end of the fairground and the turning into Rue de la Cimetière, but two half-covered trucks parked across the road obscured their view. There was no way of knowing if the Germans were guarding the route they needed to take.

‘Stay here,’ said Leon. ‘I’ll sneak in between the trucks and take a look. If it’s clear, I’ll signal you and the children to follow, yes?’

Sylvie nodded her agreement and waited, putting her finger to her lips to remind the children to stay quiet.

Leon darted out from the back of the crowd and shot between the two vehicles. From where she stood, Sylvie could see only his feet, clad in leather boots. The boots had come to a stop. Leon must be able to see round the corner now. She prayed that the way was clear.

Sylvie raised her eyes from the ground expecting to see Leon reappearing in the gap, ready to give her the yes or no signal, but when he did re-emerge it was with his two hands in the air, a look of total despair on his face. Walking behind him, pressing a rifle into his back, was a young SS officer.

Sylvie instinctively stepped forwards, ready to help her husband. She would explain that it was her fault. She’d pretend that she had asked him to go and look for one of their children who had gone missing. The soldier had to understand.

But the soldier just pushed her roughly away.

‘
Nein
,’ he said. ‘
Frauen und Kinder müssen nach rechts zu gehen
.’

‘I don’t understand,’ cried Sylvie. ‘Leon, what’s he saying?’

Leon shook his head in bewilderment as he was led off, away from Sylvie and the children, to join a crowd of men gathering in front of the Mayor’s house.

‘They’ve started to separate the men from the women and children,’ interjected a young woman nearby, cradling a small baby in her arms. ‘We have to go and stand on this side of the green, to the right, in front of the café and the hardware store. The men have to go to the left. Come on, come with us.’

Sylvie could feel tears brimming in her eyes. As she followed the young mother, keeping Louis and Paulette closely in tow, she looked back over her shoulder to try to catch sight of Leon, but he had already disappeared into the crowd.

‘Where are they taking Papa?’ Louis wailed. ‘What about our game?’

‘Sshh,’ said Sylvie, trying her best to put on a brave face. ‘The soldiers just want to talk to him. We’ll carry on playing later.’

Inside, Sylvie was in turmoil. They had waited too long. They should never have stayed in the fairground. They had broken their pact.

She began to pray that Alfred, Christelle and Sabine would not make the same mistake.

It was then that Sylvie heard the first terrifying sounds of machine gun fire.

By 2.45, all of the children in Alfred’s class had seen Doctor Depaul and were looking forward to being dismissed for the rest of the afternoon. The doctor had left about half an hour earlier, so the children knew they would be going home soon.

Although they were disappointed about having to come back into school after lunch, the afternoon had started on a cheerful note. Monsieur Gravois had invited them all to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Didier, who was ten years old that day, and Didier had proudly shared out some tiny home-made jam tarts, sent in by his mother.

Didier was a friend of Sabine’s and had been to the Fournier house many times. Alfred didn’t like it when Didier came round because that usually meant he walked home with them from school. All the way, Didier would try to make Sabine laugh with his silly jokes and usually Alfred was the butt of them. He called
him Ginger Top and Carrot Boy and, because he was so much taller than Alfred, kept rubbing his knuckles on the top of his head.

Now, as the afternoon drew on, Alfred was getting increasingly restless and was keeping himself entertained by flicking screwed up pieces of paper, dipped into the little white porcelain pot in his desk and soaked in blue ink, at the back of Didier’s head with a ruler. So far he had scored three direct hits and Monsieur Gravois still hadn’t noticed.

In fact, thinking about it, Monsieur Gravois was decidedly distracted. A short while before, the children had heard some heavy footsteps marching past the school in the direction of the village centre. They were desperate to run to the windows to see who it was but Monsieur Gravois had told them firmly to stay in their seats. He had gone to the school door and looked out, but he must have seen nothing of interest because he came straight back in and shut the door quickly behind him, saying it was nothing, and that the children should get out their reading books.

Alfred stopped firing pellets and peered closely at Monsieur Gravois, who was now pacing up and down in front of his chalkboard, holding a book but definitely not reading it. He was white-faced and was chewing his bottom lip. Something was wrong. What was Monsieur
Gravois waiting for? Doctor Depaul had been gone for ages. Why hadn’t he let them go home yet? Was it something to do with the footsteps they had heard outside? What had he really seen out of the window?

Then Alfred nearly jumped out of his seat.

Gunshots. Not far away.

The children all stopped reading and looked about them in bewilderment. Monsieur Gravois dashed over to the window.

The gunfire was followed by shouts. Men’s voices. German voices.

Alfred turned round to look at his sisters sitting in the back row with the other older students. Christelle was staring intently at Monsieur Gravois, waiting to see what he would do next. Sabine was sitting bolt upright staring back at her brother, gripping the edge of her desk, her knuckles pale.

More gunfire. Louder now.

‘Get down!’ screamed Monsieur Gravois. ‘Lie face down on the floor!’

The children scrambled for the floor, sending pencils, rulers and exercise books flying. Several of the children were whimpering in fear. The girl next to Alfred began to cry. Another sobbed, ‘I want my mother.’

Alfred began to crawl under the desks across the chalk-dusty floor towards his sisters, who were lying
side by side. Christelle had her arm laid protectively over her younger sister’s back.

‘We’ve got to get out,’ he said softly when he reached them.

‘Quiet!’ said Monsieur Gravois, hearing him. ‘Lie still.’

Alfred looked imploringly at Christelle, but she just shook her head quickly.

Maybe Christelle is right
, thought Alfred.
We should wait to see what happens next. The Germans might just pass by
.