The Letter
My dearest Geneviève,
I write this from the church of Oradour where we have been gathered with all the village. The soldiers say it is for an identity check, but something is wrong. I see fear in their eyes, the kind of fear that comes before violence.
I have hidden our savings in the usual place beneath the floorboard. If I do not return, take the children to your sister in Limoges. Do not come back here.
I smell gasoline. They are bringing it into the church. Geneviève, I cannot describe what is happening. They are separating the men from the women and children. I can see you through the doorway, holding Jean-Pierre. He is waving at me. I am trying to smile for him.
If you survive this, know that I loved you from the moment I saw you at the harvest dance in '37. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and you gave me seventeen years of happiness I did not deserve.
Tell Jean-Pierre to be a good man. Tell Marie that Papa loves her little songs.
The door is closing now. I hear shouting. I must—
[The letter was found in the ruins of the church, stained with blood and smoke. Mathieu Borie died in the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944, along with 641 other villagers. His wife Geneviève and daughter Marie died in the church with him. Jean-Pierre, age 7, was the only family member to survive, having been taken away with a group of children to be "Germanized." He was found years later in an orphanage in Germany, unable to speak French, his true identity lost until 1947.]
I write this from the church of Oradour where we have been gathered with all the village. The soldiers say it is for an identity check, but something is wrong. I see fear in their eyes, the kind of fear that comes before violence.
I have hidden our savings in the usual place beneath the floorboard. If I do not return, take the children to your sister in Limoges. Do not come back here.
I smell gasoline. They are bringing it into the church. Geneviève, I cannot describe what is happening. They are separating the men from the women and children. I can see you through the doorway, holding Jean-Pierre. He is waving at me. I am trying to smile for him.
If you survive this, know that I loved you from the moment I saw you at the harvest dance in '37. You were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and you gave me seventeen years of happiness I did not deserve.
Tell Jean-Pierre to be a good man. Tell Marie that Papa loves her little songs.
The door is closing now. I hear shouting. I must—
[The letter was found in the ruins of the church, stained with blood and smoke. Mathieu Borie died in the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10, 1944, along with 641 other villagers. His wife Geneviève and daughter Marie died in the church with him. Jean-Pierre, age 7, was the only family member to survive, having been taken away with a group of children to be "Germanized." He was found years later in an orphanage in Germany, unable to speak French, his true identity lost until 1947.]