The Evacuation of the Natzweiler-Struthof
camp
The following account of the evacuation
of the camp was written by Aime Spitz, one of the survivors of
Natzweiler-Struthof:
In August 1944 the camp was declared
zone of war. We hoped to be liberated before the year would end.
Some talked of the evacuation of the camp, then they said it
would not happen. Yet we were impressed by the many trains of
prisoners coming from the jails of Epinal, Nancy, Belfort, and
even Rennes that arrived at the camp. The last ones arriving
told us of the military situation. The S.S. were nervous and
in a bad mood. The camp was overcrowded, where could all these
deportees be put? The camp was organized for 4,000 prisoners
and we were 7,000 at the end of August 1944. We slept three in
the same bed, there were two different services of distribution
of the soup in the kitchen. Those who did not work ate their
soup at around 4 p.m. Life was no longer possible., We lacked
clothes and linen. Lice appeared. At last, on August 31, the
evacuation was decided. We were to be transferred to the camp
at Dachau.
The day and the night that preceded
our evacuation, the trucks of the S.S,. were constantly plying
between the camp and the Schirmeck valley, pouring out men and
women near the prison. As these convoys arrived, people were
murdered by a bullet in the nape; then immediately sent to the
crematorium. The chimney was red and this was a dismal sight
in the night.
On August 31, 1944 around ten at night,
the first evacuation convoy started. I belonged to it; we were
2,000 prisoners. We went down the mountain on foot, accompanied
by an important escort of S.S. and of soldiers of the Wehrmacht
with many police hounds. Most of us did not have shoes. I myself
wore clogs. When we arrived at the bottom of the mountain, a
car drew near us and stopped. The camp's commandant got out of
it and gave us the order to turn back; the train was in Rothau
station but it did not have any engine. We went back to the camp
where we arrived at around one o'clock in the morning. We went
to sleep in the block. At 5 a.m. we suddenly heard the sound
of a whistle; we had to go to Rothau station; cattle vans were
waiting for us.
65 of us were put in each one of them,
and we had neither straw nor water. Around ten in the morning,
the train moved off, we went through Strasburg, Radstadt, Stuttgart,
Augsberg and we arrived in Dachau on the next morning. Our convoy
was particularly favoured from all points of view, first because
of its rapidity, as it took two days for the other convoys, and
then because only two of us died.
From Dachau, I was transferred to
the camp at Allach, near Munich, then after a few weeks, I went
back to Dachau and we were liberated on April 29, 1945 by the
7th American Army.
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