Natzwiller, France:
When American troopers liberated the one Nazi focus camp in France virtually precisely 80 years in the past, they discovered it totally abandoned.
Thousands of individuals have been labored to loss of life or murdered within the Natzweiler-Struthof camp within the jap Alsace area on the German border throughout World War II.
But when the Americans arrived on November 25, 1944 “they found a totally intact, totally empty camp”, historian Cedric Neveu instructed AFP.
“There wasn’t a single SS guard or a single prisoner. The camp was in perfect condition… the Germans probably thought they would return,” he added.
Of the 50,000 or so folks that have been held in Struthof and its satellite tv for pc camps, “17,000 died or went missing, especially in the death marches of spring 1945,” Neveu mentioned.
“You entered here by the big gate. You will leave through the chimney” of the crematorium, the camp commander instructed prisoners arriving in 1943, in accordance with 100-year-old Henri Mosson — one of many final surviving French inmates.
‘Night and Fog’
Struthof was opened in 1941 close to the village of Natzwiller, 800 metres (2,6000 toes) up within the Vosges mountains.
New waves of prisoners started arriving from 1943 after “Nacht und Nebel” (“Night and Fog”) operations, Nazi roundups of political opponents they wished to vanish with out hint.
Mosson, a member of the French Resistance, had been arrested in June 1943 and condemned to loss of life.
In November that 12 months, he was introduced by prepare to Rothau, close to the camp.
Prisoners have been pressured into vans and vehicles “with blows from rifle butts and dog bites”, he mentioned.
“There wasn’t enough space, so some had to stand for the final eight kilometres (five miles). One man died” on the way in which, Mosson recalled.
Prisoners have been stripped, had their heads shaved and showered with water heated by the crematorium furnace earlier than going via disinfection.
Mosson received work disinfecting the prisoners’ garments, giving him an opportunity of survival regardless of the biting winter chilly, summer season warmth and hunger situations.
“By the end we had nothing but boiled nettles” to eat, he mentioned, including that he weighed simply 38 kilos (84 kilos) by the point he returned dwelling.
Men from round 30 nationalities have been held in Struthof, largely Poles, Russians and French.
Among the detainees have been Jews and Roma in addition to Jehovah’s Witnesses and common convicts.
‘Subhumans’
Political prisoners rounded up within the “Night and Fog” actions have been “right at the bottom of the ladder”, mentioned Michael Landolt, who runs the European Centre for Deported Resistance Members positioned near Struthof.
“They were given the hardest labour and had a higher death rate,” he added.
Soviet and Polish prisoners have been “considered by the Nazis to be ‘Untermenschen’ (“subhumans”) and very badly mistreated” as effectively, Landolt mentioned.
Beyond the cruel situations, Struthof was additionally the scene of executions and medical experiments.
In August 1943, 86 Jewish prisoners have been killed in a fuel chamber so their stays may very well be added to a group of Jewish skeletons.
Even as Allied forces pushed throughout France in 1944 and reached the camp, the inmates’ struggling was not at an finish.
They have been forcibly evacuated to different camps on the opposite aspect of the Rhine River.
Struthof “continued to exist, like a cancer that has metastasized,” historian Neveu described.
Its last finish got here when these satellite tv for pc camps have been evacuated within the spring of 1945.
After the warfare, Struthof was used to carry individuals who had collaborated with the Nazis till 1949, then turned a jail.
Only later did it change into a memorial website that’s now visited by greater than 200,000 folks annually.
President Emmanuel Macron is amongst leaders anticipated to pay tributes to the camp’s victims at a commemoration on the website on Saturday.
Most of the prisoners’ shacks have lengthy been dismantled, however they’re nonetheless marked out on the bottom.
Visitors can nonetheless see the crematorium buildings, the jail and the fuel chamber under, in addition to stroll the avenues of the cemetery the place multiple thousand inmates are buried.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
