The ruined "martyred village" of Oradour-sur-Glane in the Limousin area of France was once a potent symbol of French suffering under German occupation. Today not one building is intact - all were destroyed in 1944 by German troops who massacred 642 women, children and men.
The village is still a monument to those who suffered and a reminder of the atrocity, but today the role of Oradour in the memory of France is much more complex.
On June 10th, 1940, during the early afternoon 120 soldiers, members of the Der Fuhrer regiment of the Waffen SS tank division Das Reich, entered the village and called the people to the village green.
There the men were separated from the women and children and put into a number of barns. The women and children were herded into the church.
The men were shot first and then machine-guns were pointed into the church and the people inside shot. The church was then burnt. One woman managed to escape through a window. A child and a few men also survived. The whole village was then burnt down.
Why Oradour was chosen remains unclear. It was only a few days after the invasion by the Allies of the Normandy beaches. There had been intense activity by French resistance in support of the invasion in both Limousin and neighbouring Dordogne, but not in Oradour.
But whatever the motive, it became unimportant. As Oradour became subject to myth-making it was enough that it had suffered. In 1946 the French state expropriated and preserved the entire ruin. Forty acres of crumbling buildings became the Martyred Village and a symbol of a united France.
Today you can join the 300,000 people, mainly French, who visit the site every year. You walk through the ruins peering into the houses, the boulangerie, the tabac, the bars and cafes.
On the walls are printed the names of the people who occupied each house and building on June 10th, 1940, with their profession or trade.
One chapel has more or less survived, including the wooden confessional box, where two children hid, but were shot. Signs ask you to be silent and to souviens-toi, to remember.
There is no doubt that Oradour was one of the worse atrocities committed by the Nazis in France. However, its status as an official historic monument and a martyred village was not guaranteed until De Gaulle gave Oradour his support.
The American historian, Dr Sarah Farmer, in her book, Martyred Village, states that De Gaulle was a master at "mobilising myths". Oradour was to represent a quintessential French village, peaceful, with a continuity into the French past, until the village and its people became martyrs, destroyed for no apparent reason, and became hapless victims of Nazism.
When De Gaulle visited the site in 1945 he made it a symbol of France's experience when he said: "Oradour is the symbol of what happened to the country itself. In order to mend and to maintain the memory, it is necessary to remain together, as we are in this moment. A place like this remains something shared by all." That was the point of Oradour, it was to be shared by all and so the villagers had to be blameless.
The commemorative efforts at Oradour were legitimised by De Gaulle as a means of uniting the people of France. The martyred village was a frozen moment of horror that would unite a disunited country and help it come to terms with the war. That did not happen.
The few survivors and the families of those who died continued to seek justice and in 1953 a trial finally took place of 66 former SS soldiers who could be identified. Unfortunately, 14 of the soldiers were French, from Alsace. The Alsace media protested, politicians objected. Alsace was effectively subsumed into Germany and its population forced to serve in the German armed forces. Eventually there was an amnesty.
The people of Oradour, who had now moved into a new village, returned the Croix de Guerre and the Croix de Legion d'Honneur in protest.
Freezing a moment is a complex and expensive business. Nothing stands still, even a ruined village. One sees new building material holding up walls that would otherwise, due to time and the elements, have collapsed. Parts of the village are blocked off with signs saying it is being made safe, a euphemism for preservation and possibly restoration.
The survivors have died. France has more or less come to terms with its wartime experience. What was meant to outrage has become a curiosity, though an eerie one. The signs telling the visitor to remember are more necessary today as the village takes on the air of nostalgia.
As Dr Farmer's book suggests, Oradour is about memory and how we remember and why. For many Oradour was a political statement. For the survivors and the families of the dead it was about a personal tragedy.
For the politicians it was about creating a myth of unity and common suffering.