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Geo: 44.8913, 1.21502
It's a pity that we had to leave Hotel Diderot this morning: I had finally figured out how to work my door!
Breakfast was the same as yesterday. I tried strawberry jam with cocoa beans in it, and it had sort of a spicy flavor to it. I also tried the chocolat chaud, but it wasn't so chaud anymore.
Since we were about to have a very long day on the bus, Virginie took us back to Jean and Marie's life. Apparently, the onion soup worked, and nine months later Marie gives birth to a daughter, whom they name Anne-Sophie. Marie will be given 16 weeks off of work at full pay. (If Anne-Sophie had had a twin, Marie would have been given 34 weeks off.) Fortunately, there were no complications with the birth but if there had been, Marie would have been able to use her sick leave in addition to her maternity leave. Jean will have two weeks of paternity leave (three if there were twins), but if the birth had happened prior to 2002, he could only have time off if he used vacation time.
Even if the Martins are not especially religious, Anne-Sophie
will likely be baptized. Until recently, the French government or the priest who performs the baptism could refuse to allow the parents to name their child anything unusual. In the 80s, a couple wanted to name their daughter Megan. However, the "Megan" was a car model, and the government told the parents that they could not name their daughter after a car, the reason being that this poor child would have to grow up with this strange name and she would be teased mercilessly. And in France you cannot change your name: once you're given a name, that's it. The government no longer refuses certain names, but it's still a rarity to meet a French person without a traditional French name. There are no Madisons or Dakotas in France!
At the time of her birth, Anne-Sophie will be given a carnet de santé, or health record booklet, in which to record all her health issues, vaccinations, major illnesses, etc. The carnet de santé is imprinted with her Social Security number. A French SSN isn't like an American SSN in that it is only linked to healthcare, not to retirement. This SSN is also encoded on each French person's carte vitale,
a vitals card that has all the healthcare info on a chip and is linked to that person's health insurance. So when Marie goes to the doctor, she merely hands over her carte vitale and pays 30 or 40 euros. The amount she paid is recorded on the card's chip and transmitted to her insurance carrier. A few days later, she will be reimbursed all but one euro of what she paid to the doctor: the government reimburses 70%, and her carrier reimburses the other 30%. If her doctor wrote her a prescription, then she presents her carte vitale to the pharmacist and doesn't have to pay a thing. Pretty slick, I think.
We stopped for a picnic lunch in the village of Mortemart in the Limousin region. It's a cute little place with something like 400 inhabitants. While Virginie and Gilles prepared the picnic, we had 15 or 20 minutes to wander around. I went into the church (which was pretty large for such a small town). It had a grand altar with a 14th century granite statue of a Madonna and child, and beautiful choir pews with intricate carvings on the undersides of the seats. Across the street
from the church was a Carmelite convent, and there was also a convent of a different order behind the church.
We held the picnic under an 18th-century marketplace structure. Because Rick's tours were making it a regular stop for a picnic, he began paying the mayor a little bit for the use of it, and also because we weren't purchasing any food or drink in the village. Over time, the mayor was able to use that money to completely restore the marketplace, so it looks very sturdy and inviting. We had ham and salami, rillons made of goose liver and a porc pâté, grapes, carrot salad, radishes, olives, and four kinds of cheese, and, of course, bread. There were biscuits, Lindt chocolate bars, and apricots for dessert. We were all astonished to see that Virginie brought bottles of water, juice ... and a box of wine. A box! But she defended this by saying that studies have found that wine actually keeps better in a box. It just seems so un-French!
After we were all full and happy, the mayor (a little lady in her 70s) came over to welcome us to Mortemart, encourage us to retire there (!), and
wish us a good journey in France. She also mentioned that in the entire village, there are only three children under the age of 12. I hope they'll all friends!
After another half hour on the bus, we arrived at Oradour-sur-Glane, also known as the Martyr Village. On June 10, 1944, 150-200 S.S. troops came into town and made everybody in the village -- a little more than 625 people -- go the town square. Ostensibly, it was for an ID check. Then it becomes a weapons check. The people of Oradour were still more curious than frightened, as they hadn't really had trouble with the Nazis before. One little boy of nine years old, who a few years earlier had moved with his family from the Moselle region of France to Oradour after the S.S. started rounding up Jews, decided to run away at that point, leaving his parents and three sisters. Then the S.S. ordered that all the women and children go to the church, and they split up the men into groups and marched them to various areas around the village. The men were forced to stand against walls and were gunned down. Five men managed to survive
because they fell beneath the bodies of other men.
Meanwhile, back at the church, the women heard he shooting and started to panic. At this point, the S.S. came in and put boxes of gas around the inside perimeter and shot at the boxes. When the gassing didn't work, the soldiers began to spray the inside of the church with bullets. One woman and a child had been hiding behind the altar and made a break for one of the windows at the back. She and the child were shot at, and the child was killed. She managed to escape through the window, but not before being severely injured by jagged glass and bullets. She also fell badly on her ankle when she jumped from the window. Some S.S. tried to go after her, but she managed to survive by hiding in a ditch, where she was found a couple of days later. She was the only woman who survived.
After the S.S. were satisfied that everyone was dead, they set fire to the entire village in an attempt to obliterate any evidence.
The little boy who left his family had been hiding in the cemetery. He also survived. There were also two other survivors: two handicapped children who were hidden well by their father when he saw the S.S. troops roll into town. So only nine people who were in the village that morning made it out alive. No one is exactly sure what prompted the massacre. Some say it was retaliation for the murder a few days previously of a German general's aide, and some say it was simply the Nazis' reaction to the D-Day invasion four days before. Six hundred twenty-five people were murdered that day, including 200 children.
The village has been left as it was found in 1944. It's a ghost town, with burned out, nearly destroyed buildings everywhere. Remnants of life are still apparent in some of the houses: a Singer sewing machine, a bicycle, a frying pan. In what was the mechanic's garage, there are six or eight burned and rusted cars. In the cemetery, too many of the graves are marked "June 10, 1944." Several of the gravestones read "Murdered by the barbarous Nazis" or "Killed by the Boche," and so many have photos of cute little children on them. The Martyrs' Memorial at the top of the cemetery contains the visible ashes and bones of the villagers who were murdered. Signs around the village urge you to remember: Souviens-toi.
We are now staying in the Dordogne region in the town of Sarlat at the Montaigne hotel. We walked five minutes to dinner, where I had a goat cheese salad appetizer, salmon and mashed potatoes, and walnut cake with almond ice cream for dessert. It was all quite good, I'm full, and Sarlat (the little bit we saw in the daylight) looks straight out of a fairytale.
Tomorrow: canoeing!
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Mary
non-member comment
What a very sad story. i love how it has been remembered. Now I must go pour myself a glass of chardonnay from the box in the fridge.