In a partnership between a publisher and a literary forum, I received Oradour-sur-Glane by Jean-Louis Marteil.
I read receipt and trafficking. I could not release the book prematurely. It must be said that the memory of WWII is strongly registered in my family history, some have suffered from deportation for acts of resistance, for example.
How many people, I know the tragic fate of Oradour-sur-Glane. A few days after landing in Normandy, a column of barbarians, the Waffen SS, between the village and killing 642 (or 644, sometimes called a thousand victims but the number does not matter) people: men, women, children and fire buildings.
For fiction, call these books are not written by historians trying to reconstruct the last hours of the people engaged in dialogue, feelings and reactions necessarily restored, only the book Camille Mayram, Tears and Enlightenment in Oradour constitutes a pantheon of Catholic martyrs of inspiration seems to have been published. We will not forget, finally, the film The Old Gun . It's quite ironic actually because the killing is in our collective memory. Perhaps the magnitude, the apparent stupidity and gratuity may explain the massacre.
Can you write about Oradour-sur-Glane?
The question may seem absurd. But how to transcribe a nameless barbarism, that before which words are weak? And if we had been on the wrong side, what would we do? I appreciated that Jean-Louis Marteil write these words: "To believe him capable of committing such atrocities, albeit in limited circumstances and under the pressure of external events to oneself is to begin to understand ... Understanding them is able to explain ... And explain them is even unintentionally, a purpose is like to admit ... Thence to excuse, to grant them bail questionable to unfortunate circumstances, there is only that some, today's high time that passes, do not hesitate to cross (p. 86) " .
I share this state of mind: there are facts, raw and brutal, who do not have the explanation.
Should we write about Oradour-sur-Glane?
I am not a fervent supporter of the duty of memory. I am rather on the side of historians, the scientific side, the description cold. It is then the individual conscience to respond. The memory is too selective.
However, you must write on Oradour-sur-Glane to remember, remember what barbarism can lead. Jean-Louis
Marteil takes us on his feet in the site visit of the massacre were preserved. It evokes the historical context. Not as a historian, but with its own weapons: words, images and poetry. The landing has taken on the Normandy coast, "the master race is mad. They will pay, all without exception. The innocent, random road, children if necessary. Anger must find to flow, regardless of belonging to the race of the Damned! You do not see anything in the magma that is killed, nothing human should be placed before the tragic flight into dark angels drifting. On the long road, vomit all the ransom of defeat and humiliation. " Why read
Oradour-sur-Glane ?
Let us at once: some effects seemed to me too big, so the mention of me-nots at the end of the book, this flower with the narrator does not know the other names including ... "Do-not-forget me." Echo too obvious to the panel "Remember! - Remember! "Which is placed at the entrance of the village.
But the word is just in this little book. The lyricism is not a dirty word for me, I use the dictionary sense of the French Academy: works [...] which are expressed with emotion and fervor, intimate feelings - might seem inappropriate but it supports the author's message. Lyric poetry has that power conferred on him Victor Hugo in his preface Contemplations: "When I talk about myself, I'm talking to you!". I do I've never been to Oradour-sur-Glane, but the narrator has led me.
The quiet life suddenly shattered. The evidence taken as those of brothers Pinewood saved by soldiers to an unknown reason (this is also the barbarity: the irrationality of decisions incomprehensible). Wanderings in the streets, among the ruins. The narrator imagines
previous life in this peaceful village. This is not a village resistant. We saw, we're working on, we will love. It's going to die en masse.
Tram, church, barns, living spaces become places of death. The attempt to reconstruct these little bits of life in places marked by death.
The author expresses his feelings, reconstructs a past brutally destroyed by the barbarity of a few. It is certainly of spirituality in the book but the author does not pay the martyrdom of Christian inspiration as is often the case when we do not know what to write against the unspeakable.
If I had to summarize in one word this little book: "chilling". This is the word that came from the early chapters. Not
barbarism has no human face is the abolition of humanity. Jean-Louis Marteil reminds us. Let us go to his illustrious preface, Lucie Aubrac, "I did not imagined that a man can be felt just in words the splendor of a happy life and the stupidity of a brutal and senseless killing. "
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