1 . Oradour-sur-Glane , France | Memory Center of Oradour
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
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