Robert Hébras
Encyclopedia
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 barn on 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 murdered by a guard positioned near the cemetery.
Because of the fear for their lives the five remaining men waited so long under the burning corpses that 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.
Half the Hébras family - his mother Marie, his nine-year-old sister Denise, and his 22-year-old sister Georgette - died in the extermination at Oradours. His Father only survived by chance as he happened to be a farm beyond Oradour, as did his sister Leni, who had married and moved away.
After the 10 June 1944, Robert Hébras participated actively in the resistance against Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, in the last year of the war he also fought for the French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
. In the year 1983, he took part in the lawsuit against one of the assassins of Oradour – Heinz Barth
Heinz Barth
Heinz Barth was anObersturmführer in the Waffen-SS and war criminal....
– 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.
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
Saint-Junien
Saint-Junien, , is a commune in the Haute-Vienne department in the Limousin region in west-central France. Its sister city is Charleroi, Belgium.-History:...
near Oradour.
In March 2008, Robert Hébras was assigned with the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award
Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award was founded by the Austrian Service Abroad in 2006.- Meaning :The prize is annually conferred on a person who has shown special endeavors for the memory of the Shoa.- Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service :...
by the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service
The Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service is an alternative to Austria's compulsory national military service / alternative service founded in 1992. Since 1998 it is part of the Austrian Service Abroad...
at the Austrian embassy in Paris.