The World's Most Mystifying Ghost Towns

By Savannah Cox | Edited By Cara Johnson

Published January 11, 2013

Updated July 1, 2024

Oradour-sur-Glane, France

Beyond the harrowing statistics, World War II will likely persist in human memory for the ages as it represents humanity in its most saturated of forms: the horrific depths to which man may sink for personal gain and the heights to which he might also ascend in his concern for his peers. In Oradour-sur-Glane, though, it’s hard to see anything other than the former. In the summer of 1944, the quiet French village saw the deaths of 642 people–ranging from one week to ninety years old–as well as its partial-razing due to Adolph Hitler’s elite and evil Waffren-SS company.

The town was eventually rebuilt nearby, however then-President Charles de Gaulle insisted that the town’s remains stand as a living memorial for those individuals whose lives were wrongly claimed on that fateful day in June.

Source: XARJ

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Impossible Living

author

Savannah Cox holds a Master's in International Affairs from The New School as well as a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of Sheffield. Her work as a writer has also appeared on DNAinfo.

editor

A writer and editor based in Charleston, South Carolina and an assistant editor at All That's Interesting, Cara Johnson holds a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Washington & Lee University and an M.A. in English from College of Charleston and has written for various publications in her six-year career.

Citation copied

COPY

Cox, Savannah. "Five Of The World’s Most Mystifying Ghost Towns." AllThatsInteresting.com, January 11, 2013, https://allthatsinteresting.com/mystifying-ghost-towns. Accessed May 17, 2025.