Thank you for these outstanding pictures. The pictures you took of the corridors look damn evil! Do the French have any idea how many were died in there? Breaking rocks all day, with the rest of the horror makes it appear not many would ever walk out. Your visit and pictures of Struthhof Camp are greatly appreciated in all humbling respects. Good insights there.
I didnt know there was a camp in France. Thanks for the photos.
Great pics thanks for showing
Eric
[h=3]e plu·ri·bus u·num[/h]
A interesting thread, thanks for sharing the photos I will need to put that on my list to visit now!!!! Cheers Terry.
25000 people died in that camp....
and its complex of sub-camps.
Last edited by CARL; 08-09-2013 at 11:08 PM.
Amazing pictures,very touching. I also didn't know there was a camp in France. I even had Jewish family who got caught in France but were deported back to Poland. 25,000 is a lower number compared to other camps, do you know what type of prisioner this camp housed?
dear Octavian,
The deportees of Kl-Natzweiler, from all over Europe, come from all horizons. Most are political deportees, including the "Nacht und Nebel" prisoners, but there are also Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, etc. All discover a world where they are no more than numbers and sub-humans.
Nearly 52,000 people of thirty different nationalities were deported to the KL-Natzweiler camp or its annexes: the largest number were Poles, followed by Russians and French (1/4 from Alsace-Moselle), then Belgians, Norwegians, Luxemburgers, as well as Germans, Greeks, Yugoslavs, Czechs, Austrians, Lithuanians, Dutch, Italians and Slovenians…
Nicely photographed poele, well done.
One of the five Kommandants at KL-Natzweiler, SS-Obersturmbannführer Fritz Hartjenstein, initially worked at KL-Sachsenhausen, before his later appointment as Kommandant at Auschwitz-II, Birkenau. Later, he was at KL-Floßenbürg. He died of a heart attack awaiting execution in 1954. Egon Zill, Hans Hüttig, Heinrich Schwarz and the infamous Josef Kramer were the others to hold the position.
One of the more interesting facts about the staff at Natzweiler-Struthof was the very low number of female SS guards, or Aufseherinnen, as they were known. This was due to the low number of female prisoners who were at the camp. Those who were there, were experimented on, murdered, or forced to work in the camp brothel. Interestingly, the duties performed in the brothel would be paid for using a premium coupon similar to the one shown below, but the rarity of the Natzweiler tokens is unsurpassed, as only one example, a .50RM piece, is known of today.
Many of the beautiful red brick buildings in Nuremberg were constructed using the attractive red granite extracted at the Deutsche Erd und Steinwerke GmbH (German Earth and Stone Works) located at Natzweiler. Indeed, the reason for the camp was to supply the workforce required to man the stone works.
Regards,
Carl
Last edited by CARL; 02-22-2014 at 01:36 AM.
It should be noted that KL-Natzweiler-Struthof was not the only KL in France. Drancy, located just outside Paris, served as both a Sammellager (assembly camp) and Zwangslager (detention camp). Natzweiler was indeed the largest KL within the French territory, and known as one of the "Knochenmühlen" (bone mills). These camps were directly attached to stone quarries. Others included KL-Gross-Rosen nowadays located in Rogoznica, Poland and KL-Mauthausen near Linz, Austria.
Regards,
Carl
Last edited by CARL; 10-30-2013 at 01:52 PM.
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