Natzweiler (Struthof) Concentration Camp

The collection contains among others:
Prisoner lists, prisoner number books, transfer lists, transport lists, status reports, arrivals lists, prisoner-related correspondence, death books, cremation book, graves lists, cremation registry, death lists, medical registers, lists regarding “exempted sick”, book of receipts for delivered packages, memorial book of Tuttlingen, Schömberg and Schörzingen, lists of survivors, announcements from various district-, city - and municipal governments about deaths of prisoners, statistical listings about prisoner numbers and provision amounts, manual labor allowance and bonus for long-time worker with information on inside units and outside units, work statistics, strength reports, protective-custody- camp reports, various administration documents, personal files, death certificate and coroner’s certificate of prisoners, various individual documents of prisoners: clinic card, medical record, prisoner examination form and prisoner registration form; register of personal effects, death announcements, telegrams, prisoner registration cards without names but with details on date of birth, prisoner number and date of arrival in the camp; post-war reports and witness testimonies.

History of Concentration Camp Natzweiler (Struthof) 1941-1944:
Concentration Camp Natzweiler-Struthof, situated in Alsace, was the only main camp of the Nazi state on French soil. The SS leaders had this camp constructed in early 1941 and forced the prisoners, primarily so-called German criminals, French, Belgian and Luxemburg resistance fighters as well as Jews, to extract rock from the nearby granite quarry; and later to do slave labor for the war industry. Daily life in CC Natzweiler-Struthof was comparable to other SS internment sites: the prisoners were severely mistreated, received scarcely any supplies and many were murdered. Furthermore, the “Reich University” Strasburg, initiated by the Nazis, and the SS-facility “Ahnenerbe” allowed for inmates to be killed as part of their pseudoscientific research. Upon the request of the “medical personnel”, camp administrator Josef Kramer gave the order to set up a gas chamber. There, in the summer of 1943, 87 Jewish prisoners who had been deported from Auschwitz were murdered. 86 died from poison gas, one woman was shot. The mortal remains were intended as part of a skeleton collection, which SS-Hauptsturmführer and anatomy professor August Hirt was planning to build in Strasburg. The chamber was also used for human experiments. Systematic mass murder by using gas did not take place in Natzweiler, however. From 1941 until the liberation in November 1944 approx. 52,000 prisoners were to be found in Natzweiler and its almost 70 sub-camps, which were located in southwestern Germany as well as in occupied Alsace. Just under 22,000 prisoners died. In the first days of September 1944 the main camp was disbanded and, in the face of the approaching Allied troops, the prisoners were deported to Dachau. American troops reached Natzweiler on 23 November 1944. The camp was thus the first German concentration camp which the West Allies encountered when they marched in.

Source: Majerus, Benoît: Natzweiler-Struthof (KZ), in: Lexikon des Holocaust, ed.by Wolfgang Benz, München 2002, p. 157 and http://www.memorialmuseums.org/denkmaeler/view/88/Gedenkst%C3%A4tte-und-Museum-Natzweiler-Struthof [Latest access 2012-08-07].