Author Bio:
Vaughn Roste is a published author of books, plays, poems, peer-reviewed articles, program notes for CD liners and Carnegie Hall, and a doctoral dissertation. Most recently, he has optioned a screenplay, ORADOUR, which will hopefully appear in theatres in 2024. For that feature screenplay and several other shorts he has 25 screenwriting awards to date.
Follow him on Twitter @Vaughn09187022.
Vaughn's goal is to write and sell features, mostly - or be the guy they call to fix and rewrite 'em. Vaughn would like to write mostly drama, yet he gravitates towards historical stories most, but thinks sci-fi is fun, as well!
Book Buy Link: Coming Soon
Editorial Review:
...a good metaphor for Oradour – it was relaxed, patient, and full of promise; Oradour itself was that way too; it was replete with the potential of a baby carriage.
When I read this, at first, I didn't understand... but later, after knowing the entire story, this metaphor makes sense. A baby carriage holds all the innocence and hope for a mother... her future, her children sleep in peace. Oradour held all her “children” in idyllic peace until the black shadow of the Nazis gripped the handle and shoved it into the flames.
Oradour-sur-Glane. One needs only to Google the name of this town or speak the name in a quiet whisper to bring forth memories of another of the Nazi's horrific war crimes wrought upon the civilians of this innocent French village during WWII. From the very beginning, this was not an easy book to read by any stretch of the imagination, for the details of the massacre is laid out before the reader's eye in all the sheer and unabashed starkness... so much so that any reader reading this review with an idea to add this book to their 'must-read' pile must do so with caution as this is not a book for the fainthearted. To be honest, the tears and raw emotion this book engendered was more on the line of reading someone's intimate diary full of secrets which needed to be kept hidden, or seeing the crime scene photos during a trial... however, the way the author took the time to personalize each chapter, revealing the story of a victim of the Nazi's war crimes and what it did to a particular person or family made their suffering and their life valid and real. Now, with this book, we hear their pleading voices, we see their tears and blood, and taste the acrid smoke from the burning of the buildings, we smell the after aroma of gun powder, fear, and savagery... and in our day, even today, you can touch the ruins of this once quaint village which lies a half an hour northwest of Limoges, France.
Not a single thing is left of this once beautiful village except the skeletons of the houses, businesses, cars, churches, and the graves of the ENTIRE population... except for seven lone survivors who somehow managed to escape the onslaught, along with fifteen others who escaped before the massacre or went into hiding during the initial roundup of the citizens by the Nazis.
As mentioned above, the author uses each chapter to tell the story of a family or an individual who lived in the village and, ultimately, linking them all together in a bond which tells the visceral story of the rape of Oradour-sur-Glane. And that is truly what it was... the word is aptly used... for this village and the people who lived their were stripped of all dignity, humanity, and life. There were moments, as a reviewer trying to keep my eye on technical and literary aspects, I almost could not go on... not from the lack of quality in the narrative, but from sheer emotional drain as this tragedy unfolded. I am reminded of all of the stories which emerged from 9-11 when the twin towers fell, of the horrors and the heroics of the victims and the survivors.
For those who do not know the story of Oradour-sur-Glane, (I must confess to being one who knew nothing of this account), here is what this book relays.
There is a bond between survivors of traumatic incidents that cannot be explained – they cannot explain their experience to others, as no one else could possibly understand what they went through. As it turns out, they would remain friends for the rest of their lives, not due to a solemn oath, but due to this common bond.
In February 1944, a German SS unit was stationed north of Toulouse awaiting supplies and troops, and after the Normandy invasion in June, the unit was ordered north to assist in stopping the Allied advance. On June 10, 1944, SS-Stumbannfuhrer Diekman was told by members of the Milice (a paramilitary force of the Vichy Regime) that Waffen-SS officer, Helmut Kampfe, was captured by the Maquis du Limousin and the French resistance who had shown incredible fortitude against the Nazis in the area. Kampfe was taken to the hidden camp until the resistance leaders decided what to do with him.
Later that day, Diekman ordered Oradour-sur-Glane sealed off and instructed the unit to bring all of the villagers to the town square with the (false) premise of checking identity papers. Through each chapter you are told about a specific family or individual's plight as the soldiers ransack houses and bring them to the center of town. And then, the men are separated from the women and children, and led to six barns or sheds, while the women and children are locked inside the church. In quick speed, the orders are given for a complete annihilation of everyone in revenge for the capture of Kampfe, and the men are all shot by machine guns set up at the entrances to the barns and sheds. Within minutes of this travesty, a bomb is placed inside the church and the resulting blast causes fire to engulf the entire building. As the remaining victims inside the church tried to escape, the smoke, fire, and machine gun bullets took care of, with only one woman climbing through a sacristy window in order to save her life. She was the only woman survivor out of 247 women and 205 children who died that day inside the church. Of the men, only six survived, with 190 shot dead. In a matter of hours, Oradour-sur-Glane was silenced.
Days later, the story relates how the Bishop of Limoges visits the village, along with a Rabbi, and the Bishop and Rabbi have a very interesting discussion about a mass for the dead, and how the Bishop is outraged and wants justice for this small village... and yet, he has never said a word while thousands of French Jews are shipped off to concentration camps. I highlighted an entire passage of the conversation between the Rabbi and Bishop as a very, very memorable quote and one I would love to share but MUST be read in the context of the story line. It is a brilliant passage. Also, the reader is presented with the outcome for SS commander Kampfe, as well as the other barbaric officers who stomped their leather boots on this village and ground her to dust. Their outcome is not worthy of another mention.
In truth, I finished this book in one sitting, more so out of desperation to find out if anyone survived and then, out of a will to see if any justice came out of this tragedy. In the end, not nearly enough by any means. The ruins of the village stand to this day as a reminder of a demonic and monstrous time in history... and this book recounts in vivid detail, almost in a minute by minute account, of what happened that day. So often, when readers think to read something in historical fiction we are inundated with stories from the concentration camps, which were horrors in themselves, but the Nazi war crimes reached as far as Hitler's warped mind could stretch, far beyond the barbed wire, and his Nazi goons wiped out entire communities just because they could. So, take a deep breath, open the front cover, and take a moment to listen to the voices of the people of this weeping city.
A baby carriage ridden with bullet holes stood outside the door to the church, perhaps left there by a mother who was claiming the body of her... How was any of this even possible... ? The wooden cross on the wall by the door of the church, however, remained strangely undamaged. “Kyrie elieson,” the opening words of the Mass, came to the Bishop's mind. Lord, have mercy...
*****
“The Bullet Ridden Baby Carriage” by Vaughn Roste receives 4.5 stars from The Historical Fiction Company
Trigger warnings: high violence, sexual violence, gruesome death descriptions
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