The 96-year-old man has decided to pass the baton to his granddaughter Agathe who plans to “anchor Oradour in contemporary society”, by creating “a bridge with other dramas”.
On the eve of the commemorations of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre (Haute-Vienne), Robert Hébras, 96, the last survivor still alive from the tragedy, steps back and has decided to hand over the work of memory to his granddaughter Agathe, the family said Thursday.
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The old man who moves around with the help of a cane or in a wheelchair, will nevertheless be present at the ceremonies on Friday, in the presence of the Keeper of the Seals Éric Dupond-Moretti, commemorating the massacre of 643 inhabitants by the Nazis on June 10, 1944.I have been thinking about this project for a long time. My granddaughter has always been interested in Oradour. For me, it is very important that she takes over“, told an AFP correspondent the one who will celebrate his 97th birthday on June 29.
For years, Robert Hébras intervened in schools, with French and foreign delegations, showed the ruins to groups of officials, such as recently senior army officers or delegations from other martyred cities. “Since I was little, I have been listening to my grandfather’s story and I understood very early that he had a place, a special role. I never imagined my life without Oradoursaid Agathe Hébras, 29. The young woman who learned German at school, holder of a master’s degree in History, is now part of the board of directors of the National Association of the families of the martyrs of Oradour-sur-Glane and that of ‘Oradour, history, vigilance and reconciliation.
Last survivor
On June 10, 1944, four days after D-Day, 643 inhabitants of Oradour, near Limoges, had been massacred by the SS Das Reich division which was joining the Normandy front in a bloody march. Robert Hébras, a 19-year-old mechanic, was one of the six survivors of the massacre after being machine-gunned and left for dead in a barn, from where he managed to escape despite the fire. He is the last survivor. Agathe now countsanchor Oradour in contemporary society», «go further” doing “a gateway to other dramas“. Contacts are going, or are in the process of being established, with other associations of victims, that of the Bataclan or the World Trade Center. “For the new generations, we are forced to create a link with the present and not always stay in the Second World War. If this allows (…) to understand that the gears that led to Oradour can be repeated today, it will already be that“, she says.
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