One Day in Oradour (12 page)

But they didn’t.

The door burst open and in strode a dark-haired German soldier carrying a sub-machine gun.

‘Out!’ he shouted. ‘All of you. Out!’

Monsieur Gravois got rapidly to his feet. More children started to cry.

‘Everyone stay calm. It will be all right. Just do as he says. Line up along the wall then follow me.’ Monsieur Gravois turned to the soldier and spoke in German. ‘They’re only children. Where do we have to go?’

‘To the fairground. Tell them that their parents are all there. You lead. I will stay at the back. Tell them no one must try to escape.’

At the back of the line, Alfred was tugging at Christelle’s sleeve and gesturing with his head towards
the door in the corner of the classroom which led to the cloakroom.

‘Stop it, Alfred,’ Christelle whispered. ‘You heard what Monsieur Gravois said. Our parents are all in the fairground.’

‘But we all agreed,’ argued Alfred. ‘It’s happening. The Germans have come. We have to go to the woods behind the cemetery. Now, while he’s not looking, let’s hide in the cloakroom ‘til he’s gone.’

Christelle looked unmoved.

‘Sabine, please,’ Alfred pleaded, looking at the younger of his two sisters. ‘They’re Germans. We know what they’re like. They’ll try to hurt us.’

Sabine looked from Alfred to Christelle, then back at Alfred. Tears were streaming down her face. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I want to go and find Mother and Father, at the fairground.’

Alfred started to back up into the corner of the classroom, all the time keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the German soldier who was waving his gun at the children at the front of the line to encourage them to start filing out.

‘I’m going to try to escape.’

Christelle opened her mouth to object, but Alfred had already ducked out through the doorway and was gone.

The two girls resisted the temptation to look back as they were herded out of the school building, not wanting to raise any suspicion about their brother. They held tightly onto one another’s hands, and shuffled along at the back of the line, keeping their heads down.

To get to the fairground they had to walk all the way back up the Peyrilhac road, and then turn right up the hill as they approached the church.

As they reached the end of the road by the blacksmith’s, they passed a group of young tourists who had just ridden into town on their bicycles. Christelle heard them desperately trying to explain to the German officer who was shepherding them that they had just come into Oradour for a picnic by the river. They often did it, they kept repeating, it was such a beautiful spot. Could they not just go back down to the bridge? They would find another place to stop.

The SS officer, impatient and tired of listening, suddenly stopped in his tracks and ordered the group to lean their bicycles against the wall. Christelle watched as he marched them at gunpoint into the forge.

It wasn’t until the line of schoolchildren had turned off into Rue de la Cimetière that Christelle heard the gunfire from the forge. She closed her eyes and fought back the wave of nausea that rose up in her throat. Alfred had been right. They should have tried to escape. She
was the eldest. She should have known better, should have had more courage.

‘Do whatever they say, Sabine,’ she muttered, squeezing her sister’s hand. ‘Just don’t argue with them, alright?’

Every house and store they passed seemed to be swarming with SS men.

‘What are they looking for?’ whispered Sabine.

Christelle shook her head in bewilderment.

An old man, hardly able to walk, was being dragged out of his house, his small frail body looking so fragile in the clutches of the powerful young soldier who now shoved him down onto the ground.

‘Don’t look,’ cried Christelle, spinning her sister to face the other way as she saw the rifle being pushed into the old man’s back and heard the crack as it fired.

The children were now screaming and Monsieur Gravois, panicking, began to run with them towards the fairground, trying all the while to keep the smallest huddled as close to him as possible. It was too late now to try to quieten their fears, as the gunfire continued to rattle around them and the streets began to fill with the sound of panicked voices.

Once in the cloakroom, Alfred paused for a second, trying to decide his next move. If he went out of the side
door, he could escape through the playground and run off in the opposite direction to the way his classmates had gone. But that would mean staying on the road where there was every chance that there would be more soldiers. It also took him towards the river and away from the cemetery.

No. He had to stick to the plan, even if Sabine and Christelle had chosen not to. He had let his mother down too many times lately. He recalled the look on her face the night before as she had served him that plate of dried-up fish stew. This time he was going to do as he was told.

Above his head, offering a view out over the hill at the back of the school, was a small window. It was big enough for him to climb through, and it was open. Alfred put one foot up on the bench under which the pupils all stored their bags and their plimsolls ready for sports lessons, took hold of a coat peg with his left hand, and sprang upwards, grasping the window ledge with his right hand before heaving himself up until he was balanced in mid air, half in and half out. He looked out and could have cried with relief to see the garden and the cornfield beyond free of soldiers. He had a chance.

Swivelling his body round to the side, and hanging on tight, Alfred swung his left leg up. As he lifted
his foot over the window sill his clog caught on the latch and he wobbled dangerously. Steadying himself, he tugged with his foot. He was free, but he felt his clog come loose and his breath caught in his throat as it fell back inside. Alfred froze as he waited for it to hit the tiled cloakroom floor, but the noise of the last few children filing out of the classroom disguised the sound. He could still escape.

He swung both legs out of the open window until he was facing back into the cloakroom, then gradually lowered himself down, feet first, as far as he could before letting his body drop to the floor onto the soft grass. Thankful that the ground was dry, Alfred kicked off his remaining clog and sprinted across the grass and scrambled over the wall at the end of the school garden.

He looked about him. Behind the school was a gently sloping hill, a lush green pasture used for grazing sheep which was dotted with fruit trees. If he ran straight up the hill he could dart from tree to tree. But what if he was spotted in between? The higher he went, the easier it would be for the soldiers to see him from down on the street. If he ran to his left, staying low on the edge of the pasture behind his own school and the infant school next door, he could hug the wall and keep out of sight until he picked up the footpath that crossed the corner of the field and led to Rue de la Cimetière, further up
towards the edge of the village. Not knowing how many Germans were about, the second option seemed safer to Alfred for now.

Sticking closely to the wall, he began to jog along the edge of the field, parallel with the Peyrilhac road. As he went, his thoughts wandered back to the classroom. Had Monsieur Gravois done a head count? Had the German noticed that he had gone missing from the back of the line? Suddenly worried that he was being followed, Alfred looked back over his shoulder. He didn’t see the figure coming out of the garden gate in front of him until it was too late.

Smack! The pair collided. Alfred bounced off the larger man and landed in a pile of old sacks. Temporarily dazed, he expected to hear a German voice ordering him to get up, but instead a floury hand reached out to help him up.

‘Sorry, son,’ a familiar voice whispered. ‘I didn’t see you coming.’

It was Benoit Martin, his father’s boss from the bakery. Separated from his wife, Benoit had been convinced that, whatever the Germans’ reason was for taking the men away from the women and children, it was bad. He had heard all about the Fourniers’ experience in Charly from Leon and didn’t trust the Germans for a second. So he had taken advantage of a scuffle between
one of the soldiers and a group of men who had come into Oradour for the day by tram from Limoges. He had waited until the soldier was surrounded by the men and then darted down an alleyway behind the smithy. From there he had crossed the street and slipped round the back of the Joubert family barn. Then he had crept along the backs of the houses until he had reached the garden of his own cottage on the Peyrilhac road, next to the infant school.

He had intended to hide indoors, perhaps in the loft or in the cellar, but as he had made to open the back door leading into his kitchen, he had heard movement inside. The Germans were searching the rooms, making sure that no one was hiding there. He could hear his furniture being thrown around, his possessions being smashed, cupboard doors being torn open.

As quietly as he could, he had retreated up the garden path and back out of the rear gate. He was planning on carrying on along the field edge until he reached the end of the village. If he could get beyond the road block without being seen, he could run to the next village and get help.

‘Why don’t you come with me, Monsieur Martin?’ Alfred suggested. ‘I have a plan. I’m heading for the woods behind the cemetery. That’s where my mother and father will be going.’

Benoit was about to explain to Alfred that his mother and father were still in the fairground when he suddenly heard German voices in the garden the other side of the fence. He grabbed Alfred’s sleeve and dived with him behind a large sheet of corrugated iron which was leaning up against a compost heap. He held his hand over Alfred’s mouth and put his other finger to his own lips, the fear in his own eyes meeting the panic in Alfred’s.

Alfred and Benoit clung to one another, trying desperately to control their rapid breathing as they heard the two German voices getting louder. One soldier said something to the other and then laughed nastily. The sound made Alfred’s flesh turn cold.

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.

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.