Noticing lv - memorials to war

Photo by roncalli gerald via Flickr

Yesterday a political action group I belong to had a holiday potluck, and I got to talking with a woman who has spent quite a bit of time in France. We were sharing stories about Périgord, and she mentioned a town that had been completely destroyed in WWII—and that De Gaulle decided not to allow to be rebuilt, as a way to memorialize the wartime atrocities. (In fact, the town was re-sited and now exists close to the ruined one.) She couldn't remember the name, but it was pretty easy to find thanks to Google: Oradour-sur-Glane, in Haute-Vienne (Nouvelle Aquitaine). The vicious massacre took place on June 10, 1942, ostensibly as retaliation for the capture by the French Resistance (Maquis du Limousin) of a German officer, and cost 642 people their lives.

This got me wondering about that place, and others that were similarly left in ruins (or intact—see below) in perpetuity, as memorials. A little Googling got me a few hits.

The room of Hubert Rochereau, who died in WWI, in the town of Bélâbre, France, has remained untouched for one hundred years (except, I presume, for dusting).

A perfectly preserved WWI trench, in Sanctuary Wood, Ypres, Belgium.

Photo by Juan Pedro Gómez via Flickr

The town of Belchite in Spain (Aragón), destroyed in 1939 during that country's civil war in a two-week-long battle. The intentions of Generalissimo Franco were perhaps not so pure as to "memorialize" the town, but rather to have it serve as a monument to the "irresisitibility of the Nationalist forces"—i.e., his ability to punish at will. "What remains of Belchite" today, notes Atlas Obscura, "stands not as an enduring mechanism of terror, as it was intended, but a testament to the human folly of war and the brutality of fascism."

And then of course there's the iconic ruin of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, now commonly called Genbaku ("A-Bomb") Dōmu (原爆ドーム), the only structure left standing near the hypocenter of the first atomic bomb, on August 6, 1945. The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park was ultimately built around the ruined building, and in 1996 it was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.