War

'....what is it good for?'

On 10th June 1944 a few days after the Normandy landings, the Nazi occupying forces rounded up the inhabitants of Oradour sur Glane near Limoges, France, and massacred them by shooting and burning them. Six hundred and forty two people died.

Why did they do it?
Because they could.
Because they were obeying orders.
They had nothing to lose.
They had nothing to gain.
Perhaps they were in thrall to a charismatic leader.
Perhaps they felt superior.

President De Gaulle declared that the site should be left exactly as it stood so that the World should not forget the barbaric atrocity.
And so it has since then. The people's cars, sewing machines, bicycles and personal effects gently decaying in the sunshine and the rain.

We have been there before. Maybe we shouldn't have returned, because something like this cannot have the same impact as the first time you see it.
Every time you experience brutality it slightly lessens its affect I think, so that you become a tiny bit more accepting that such a thing can happen.

Perhaps that's why seventy years later, there are still atrocities being committed over politics, race, religion, gender and sexual orientation.

This is the Doctor's car in front of burned out buildings. Just as it was left.
Rusting away.