Response to Wiesenthal Centre from the Mayor of Oradour-sur-Glane to our letter and press release of 23 August “Wiesenthal Centre Shares the Pain of the Revisionist Denial Desecration of Oradour-sur-Glane”

Paris, 21 September 2020

On 23 August, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, wrote a letter of condolences and solidarity to the Mayor of Oradour-sur-Glane, Philippe Lacroix, in which the Centre denounced the Holocaust denial and desecration of his town’s Martyrs Memorial site... built to commemorate 642 children, women and men massacred by the Nazi Waffen SS in 1944.

See: https://www.wiesenthal-europe.com/en/news-releases-2020/712-wiesenthal-centre-shares-the-pain-of-the-revisionist-denial-desecration-of-oradour-sur-glane
and: http://www.wiesenthal.com/about/news/simon-wiesenthal-centre-2.html

Samuels recalled: “to desecrate this hecatomb is to murder the villagers for a second time. This has been the fate of many Jewish communities throughout Europe. Thus, we share your pain..."

The Mayor of Oradour-sur-Glane sent the Centre a warm response last week, on the eve of the Jewish New Year:

We would like to sincerely thank you for your message of support that you sent us following the revisionist tags at the entrance of the Centre de la Mémoire [the Memorial Museum of Oradour-sur-Glane] on August 21.

This unspeakable act obliges us to be vigilant at all times, to respect historical truth and to pass on the duty of memory, in particular to the younger generations.

You can count on our determination.

With our renewed thanks. Best regards to you.

Philippe Lacroix
Mayor of Oradour-sur-Glane