Natzweiler-Struthof

Discussion in 'The Holocaust' started by Gage, Jan 3, 2009.

  1. Gage

    Gage The Battle of Barking Creek

    Here is a site I've found on this infamous camp which is well laid out. There is some good information on female SOE agents who were murdered there. Some of the information is from a book on Vera Atkins, which sits on my bookshelf unread, I need to stop buying books. The site seems to be fairly extensive.
    French Resistance fighters imprisoned and executed at Natzweiler-Struthof


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    Andrée Borrel
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    Sonia Olschanezky


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    Vera Leigh


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    Diana Rowden
     
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  2. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    Craig,

    That is a very informative link that you have posted and having read the contents, like all KZ reports, makes gruesome reading.

    Regards
    Tom
     
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  3. Gage

    Gage The Battle of Barking Creek

    Craig,

    That is a very informative link that you have posted and having read the contents, like all KZ reports, makes gruesome reading.

    Regards
    Tom

    Thanks Tom. The stuff of nightmares.
     
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  4. geoff501

    geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

    Thanks for the post Craig.

    There are some decrypted Enigma code orders for the execution of some members of the French Resistance: The Execution of Simone Michel-Lévy, Hélène Lignier and Noémie Suchet .

    I was involved in breaking these messages a few years ago. They were found in a batch of messages originating from the Flossenbürg camp, from the last few weeks of the war in Europe.

    Link here with more details:


    Frode Weierud's CryptoCellar


    cheers,

    geoff
     
  5. Gage

    Gage The Battle of Barking Creek

    Thanks for the post Craig.

    There are some decrypted Enigma code orders for the execution of some members of the French Resistance: The Execution of Simone Michel-Lévy, Hélène Lignier and Noémie Suchet .

    I was involved in breaking these messages a few years ago. They were found in a batch of messages originating from the Flossenbürg camp, from the last few weeks of the war in Europe.

    Link here with more details:


    Frode Weierud's CryptoCellar


    cheers,

    geoff

    Thanks so much for that Geoff.
    Those women were so brave. Always a traitor somewhere, do we know what happened to him?
    That's the first time I'd heard of ways to move mail around. Fantastic the way they still tried to sabotage when it caused them great personel danger.
    Is there any books with more info in I can track down, Geoff?
    Thanks again.
     
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  6. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Whilst watching The Reader the other week I thought it odd that the main character visits Auschwitz during the trial. I thought he wouldn't have got a Polish Visa in time . Or even be let in as it was set during the time of the Cold War.
    Having just read the book, Schlink says it's not Auschwitz the character vists for exactly that reason, it would have taken weeks to get a visa.
    The camp mentioned in the book is Struthof in Alsace.
    Don't think I've heard of it before.
    Good web-page on it here.

    Natzweiler-Struthof Concentration Camp http://www.HolocaustResearchProject.org


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    natzweiler-struthof concentration camp - Google Maps
     
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  7. Gage

    Gage The Battle of Barking Creek

  8. ranville

    ranville Senior Member

    We visited this camp a couple of years ago when we were staying in Colmar.------Interesting[if thats the the right word] but a thoroughly depressing experience.--The museum, in the medical block, has photographs depicting the various experiments carried out on the inmates....sickening. We walked round the camp briefly but cut our visit short because me and the Mrs both sensed[for the first time in our lives] a real sense of evil and we both felt we had to get out.---My lasting memory strangely enough, was of a coachload of German Teenagers coming out of the camp laughing thier heads off and generally pissin about.---I know there are some logical and generous explanations for their behaviour[being teenagers] but at the time it added to my feelings of anger and dismay at the human race.
     
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  9. Marco

    Marco Senior Member

    We visited in 2000. Sobering experience indeed. It was also the place where 'nacht und nebel' inmates were held and executed. Also some female SOE operators were killed here by means of a lethal injection.

    Down the road is a building belonging to a hotel where one of the first experiments with gassing prisoners were held. The corpses were sent to Strasbourg for dissection.

    I am currently digitalizing my 30.000 colour slide collection and when this series comes along I will post some pictures.

    Regards,

    Marco
     
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  10. Marco

    Marco Senior Member

    As per promise (2000). As said, an evil place.

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    Gass chamber at nearby hotel

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    Baths to store bodies in formaldahyde
     
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  11. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Marco,
    That's the most disturbing sculpture I've ever seen.
    Cheers, just before bedtime too.
     
  12. James S

    James S Very Senior Member

    A deeply depressing series of photographs and views but realistic given the nature of the place.
    The so called "Revisionist Scholar" , "The father of the revisionist Movement" "Professor" Robert Faurission sought to conceal the operation of the gas chambers in this camp from a gentleman called Pressac having up to this point had been swayed by Faurission's seemingly logical approach to questioning aspects of the Holocaust.
    Pressac's own studies of the record's proved beyond doubt that Faurission was a liar and a charlatan.
    The formaldehyde baths used to preserve bodies are simply disgusting , what Faurission sought to conceal was the documented movement of prisoners from Auschwitz to provide skeletons for "medical research" , their remains going to Strasbourg University.

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    For further information on the camp and this particular episode , but an example of its rich legacy to humanity.

    http://www.mazal.org/Pressac/Pressac0095.htm
     
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  13. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    As per promise (2000). As said, an evil place.

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    Gass chamber at nearby hotel

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    Baths to store bodies in formaldahyde

    Marco,

    Gruesome photographs indeed, especially the Formaldahyde Baths, which I have never seen before.

    It defies belief that there are people who still maintain that all this is a figment of imagination.

    A very sobering reminder of what evil deeds were perpertrated in these dark times.

    Lest we forget.

    Regards
    Tom
     
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  14. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    The background to the "medical research" at Strasbourg University was the body of Nazi doctors who had been seduced by Nazi ideology and were found throughout the writ of the Third Reich.Outside the camps,they were hand in league with the Gestapo and at every execution yard they were to be found ready to receive bodies for their medical research into racial theory.Some have left their involvement to history in this gastly work by the number of medical papers on the subject they made available to the Nazi Party.

    The culprit at Natzwiller was August Hirt, a latecomer to the medical section of the SS, who was never traced to account for his crimes.Himmler appointed Hirt as the Head of the Anatomy Institute at the University of Srasbourg with the task of obtaining scientific support for his racial theories.It was this task that saw Hirt having a close association with the murdering at Natzwiller.

    Hirt was one of those who push hard in medical research.At the behest of Himmler,he was instructed to discover an antidote to mustard gas.He experimented on himself and dogs but was not successful and ended up in hospital with bleeding lungs.Not deterred,he then started to experiment on prisoners and twenty of his "guinea pigs" went blind and died in agony.As regards his association with Natzwiller,Hirt gave strict instructions that the heads of murdered prisoners should not be damaged in any way for it would interfere with his research at Srasbourg into pathological features of the skulls,their form and size of brain.Apart from his involvement at Natzwiller,Hirt was active in procuring the skulls of "Jewish Bolshevist Commissars" from Poland and the Eastern Front to satisfy Himmler's quest in racial theory.

    When Stasbourg was in danger of being overrun by US and French troops,Hirt was advised by Himmler to destroy his collection of skulls but when the city was taken,US troops found a storeroom full of skulls,untouched.

    Natzwiller was liberated in November 1944 and I think it was Major Bill Barkwith who reported the existence of the camp to the Allies.An account and publicity to what was going off at Natzwiller was denied to the general public.When Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians,the existence of concentration camps was released to the public.

    Later the 4 SOE woman agents werre traced to this camp and it was suggested at one time that they were not dead by lethal injection when they were cremated.Off the cuff,the executioner was one who paid the maximum penalty after his postwar trial.

    The small building on the left as the hill is climbed towards the main gate was where, as reported in this thread,the early gassing experiments was said to have been performed.It was also reported that at this time that Kramer,later the commandant of Bergen Belsen concentration camp served at Natzwiller in some junior capacity.Hirt was to have an understanding with Kramer for the provision of skulls to aid his medical research.

    Hirt was truely an evil person who saw his medical research focussed outside normal moral standards.Not surprising for he was member of the SS and like many of his ilk, complied with any direction given by Himmler.
     
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  15. GS59

    GS59 Member

    KL NATZVILLER-STRUTHOF

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  16. GS59

    GS59 Member

    The continuation...

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  17. Vitesse

    Vitesse Senior Member

    A very moving set of pictures of what looks to be a well-presented and cleverly understated exhibit. That simple memorial to the SOE agents almost moved me to tears. Thank you.
     
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  18. ww2ni

    ww2ni Senior Member

    Excellent photographs.

    Where is this place??
     
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  19. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    Never forgive, never forget. Lest 'they' come back.

    http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516a2569e200e5548ecc388833-320wi

    Natzweiler-Struthof was a German concentration camp located in the Vosges Mountains close to the Alsatian village of Natzwiller (German Natzweiler) in France, and the town of Schirmeck, about 50 km south west from the city of Strasbourg.
    N 48º 27.2' W 7º 15.0'

    lixo.jpg
     
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  20. GS59

    GS59 Member

    Never forgive, never forget. Lest 'they' come back.

    http://andrewhammel.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834516a2569e200e5548ecc388833-320wi

    N 48º 27.2' W 7º 15.0'

    View attachment 34705

    They are still there They are and the desecrations of Jewish cemeteries or cemeteries of Senegalese, Morrocan Infantrymen etc. are regular
    Profanation de tombes musulmanes au cimetière militaire Notre-Dame-de-Lorette près d'Arras - FNCV Infos et Actualités des Combattants Volontaires

    27 tombes profanées dans un cimetière juif en Alsace - Société - Nouvelobs.com

    Profanation du cimetiere de Saverne
     
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