The Guardian reports:

Police are investigating after a sign at Oradour, in the Haute-Vienne region of south-central France near Limoges, was defaced with the word mémoire (memorial) sprayed over and replaced by menteur (liar).

The desecration has caused national outrage across France, where Oradour remains a potent physical symbol of Nazi brutality.

On 10 June 1944 – four days after the Normandy landings – a 200-strong detachment of the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, part of the notorious Das Reich division, marched into the village.

In retaliation for the reported kidnapping of a Nazi officer and attacks by the French resistance in the region, they rounded up the village’s 652 inhabitants and ordered everyone into the village square.

The men were then taken at gunpoint into nearby barns; the remaining 247 women and 205 children were herded into the church. The men were machine-gunned in the legs, then the barns and church were set alight. Those who tried to escape were shot. Only six villagers survived.

The village was left as it was, to be a memorial.