It was around 4 o'clock that an explosion rocked the town of Oradour sur Glane. From inside the locked church, the women heard the rattle of machine guns, and other small arms as the men were masscre almost simultaneously in various locations throughout the village where the man had been confined by the soldiers.

Survivors reported that the SS men fired first at the men's legs, then the soldiers continued to fire until nothing moved. They even climbed over the piles of bloody boied and finished off the unfortunate few who were still moving. Then, according to the few men who were still alive laying under the piles of bodies, the soldiers covered the bodies with straw, haw, wood and anything else that could be used for fuel to burn the corpses.

Despite the horror of these massacres, a small number of men managed to escape the bullets. They were: Mathieu Borie, Clement Broussaudier, Marcel Darthout, Robert Hebras and Yvan Roby. According to their accounts, when the first volleys of machine gun and rifle fire began they threw themselves to the ground and feigned death. Then, extricating themselves from the piles of bodies above them, they made their way to a corner of the barn and waited while the inferno that had been set by the Germans raged around them. When they could no longer stand the flames and smoke, they made a break for the country side where they hid in the bushes until nightfall.