Robert Hébras

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Robert Hébras

Robert Hébras (born 29 June 1925 in Oradour-sur-Glane) is one of only six persons, which survived the Massacre of Oradour on the 10 June 1944.

Marguerite Rouffanche the only female survivor of this mass murder, which got to a national allegory for NS-Atrocity in the post war period in France. She was the only one who escaped from this village church which became to a deadly trap, where 207 children and 254 women suffocated or burned alive by SS-Soldiers.

Robert Hébras, Jean-Marcel Darthout, Mathieu Borie, Clément Broussaudier, Yvon Roby and Pierre-Henri Poutaraud were the only six of 186 male civilians who survived the execution with machine guns. The six mentioned persons stayed – partly covered beneath the dead bodies of their buddies – in the barn and pretended to be dead. The SS-Soldiers went on the pile of corpses and shot everyone who was still moving. They set the bar in fire 15 minutes after the execution to cover the tracks of the massacre. Pierre-Henri Poutaraud fled out of the fire too soon and was after all murdered by one of the positioned guards near the cemetery.

Because of the fear for their lives the five remaining men awaited for so long under the burning corpses, until they themselves caught fire. Robert Hébras: „My left arm and my hair had already burned. It was a terrible pain; therefore I had to get out of the barn.” Three of five men who managed to escape out of the burning village, were seriously injured by the hail of bullets, including Robert Hébras. One bullet remained stuck in his leg, another touched his wrist.

The half Hébras family - the mother Marie, the nine-year-old daughter Denise, and the 22-year-old daughter Georgette - died in the extermination Oradours. In addition to son Robert Hébras the only reason of the father’s survival was that he accidentally assisted at a friendly farmer beyond Oradour, as well as the eldest daughter Leni, which already was married and therefore in a different place to live.

After the 10 June, 1944, Robert Hébras participated actively in the resistance against Nazism, in the last year of the war he also fought on the part of the French Resistance. In the year 1983, he took part in the lawsuit against one of the assassins of Oradour – Heinz Barth – as a witness in the former GDR. 2003, a documentary movie was published, entitled “Encounter with Robert Hébras - On the trail extinguished life” (“Begegnung mit Robert Hébras - Auf den Spuren ausgelöschten Lebens") by the German filmmaker Bodo Kaiser.

Robert Hébras makes himself particular worthy through the memory and the processing time of National Socialism and through his commitment as a contemporary witness and as a writer. Throughout his lifetime, the former resistance fighter always stood up for the reconciliation between Germany and France.

Granddaughter Delphine Hébras, 99-year old Jean Serog, Robert Hébras and Austria's ambassador in Paris Hubert Heiss

Despite his old age Robert Hébras still takes tours through the ruins of the martyr village. He is still available for young people – especially schoolchildren, students, volunteers and Holocaust Memorial Servants – for interviews, video projects and works actively at the Centre de la mémoire.

In addition, the trained mechanic held for many years, the office of the chairman of the National Association of families of martyrs and serves to this day as President of the Assembly of former participants of war of Oradour.

Robert Hébras is married, has a son and three grandchildren and lives in Saint-Junien near Oradour.

In March 2008, Robert Hébras was assigned with the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award by the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service at the Austrian embassy in Paris.

[edit] References

• Robert Hébras: Oradour-Sur-Glane, le drame heure par heure, ISBN 2-909-82600-7
• André Desourtreaux & Robert Hébras: Oradour/Glane, notre village assassiné, ISBN 2-847-02003-9

[edit] External Links

• Interview with Robert Hébras