France France remembers “forgotten” WWII victims 25/08/08 20:56 CET

Nicolas Sarkozy has become the first French President to pay homage to the victims of a World War Two massacre long overshadowed by another atrocity weeks earlier.

124 people, mostly women and children, were killed by German soldiers in the western village of Maille in August 1944. The massacre is thought to have been an act of revenge against members of the French resistance. It came just two months after a similar carnage in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in which more than 600 people were murdered.

After the war, Maille was entirely rebuilt and survivors have long felt they had been forgotten.
Inaugurating a memorial museum, Sarkozy said he was righting an historic wrong.

No one has ever been held responsible for the killings.