Survivors
Barbara Lydecker Crane
Survivors
June 10, 1944, Oradour-sur-Glane, a village in what was then Vichy (free) France.
I remembered Mama’s words: If you see
German soldiers, run to the woods and hide.
Our teacher stood outside with three of them.
One raised his voice, hand just above his gun.
“Let’s run!” I whisper-shouted to my friends,
but they just sat. “Fraidy-cats,” I hissed,
scrambled out a schoolhouse window, and raced
across a field filled with prickly weeds.
I heard some shots and felt a sting but made it
to a tree that I could lean on, panting.
I ignored my bleeding elbow as I ran,
then shucked my heavy shoes to swim the river
as I eyed a cloud of smoke in far-off sky.
A lady found me at a well, shivering
so hard I shook. That’s when I could cry.
—Roger Godfin, then 7
“An i.d. check,” the soldiers barked, and ordered
women and children to the village church.
Packed in and hot, we pleaded for release
from one young soldier lugging in a box.
He fled and it exploded into chaos.
We screamed and pounded on the door—locked tight—
and Nazi demons answered us through windows
with machine guns. I crumpled, feigning death,
then slithered through the bodies to the altar:
I knew there was a ladder kept behind it.
I climbed up to the blown-out stained glass window
and leapt, crouching safe in berry brambles
until five Nazi gunshots brought me down.
Left for dead and found the following day,
I mourned my family and my ruined town.
—Marguerite Rouffanche, then 47
If German soldiers ever came—they did
that June day and took away our parents—
I knew the plan: to find André, my little
brother (he’s impaired) and hide in the cellar
of the old hotel. “Stay still,” I whispered
as we crouched in a musty apple bin.
A sudden boom, a distant roar of screams,
and ack-ack of machine guns froze us there
till rising heat and smoke drove us out
and up the stairs into the village street.
The buildings were in flames! We turned, ran smack
into a soldier who looked as young as me.
“What should we do?” I blurted, and he just
flapped one hand toward the apple trees.
We didn’t know that he was saving us;
we only knew to run on shaking knees.
—Jacqueline Pinède, then 19
The soldiers herded a pack of men and me
into a barn, barred the doors, and began
blasting their machine guns. Two older neighbors,
unwitting mortal shields, fell on me.
Weeks later, with my wounds patched up, I joined
a local band of young Resistance fighters,
intent on making Nazi bastards pay.
As years went by, I turned away from vengeance:
now as as a guide, I set my sights on peace.
In leading groups from many countries here,
I speak of reconciliation. Still,
in charred remains of tractors, tools, shoes,
twisted bikes and bed frames, horror lingers.
Deaths that day: six hundred forty-three.
Survivors? You can count them on your fingers.
—Robert Hébras, then 18
Poet’s Note
On a trip to France about two years ago, I visited Oradour and was horrified to walk its empty streets, see the devastation, and learn its history. Back home, thinking of writing about it, I delved into the website oradour.info and then wrote and rewrote these four persona stanzas in blank verse. Each account is based on facts. Before each stanza, I’ll read the name of its speaker and their age on the day of this event.
Barbara Lydecker Crane has won the Kim Bridgford Memorial Sonnet Crown Contest, the Helen Schaible Sonnet Contest, and has twice been a Finalist for the Rattle Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in First Things, Think, and New Verse Review, among many others. She has published five collections, including You Will Remember Me and Art & Soul.