Natzweiler-Struthof Crematorium
The photograph above shows the crematorium
building where the bodies of dead prisoners were incinerated
in an oven. Note the tall smoke stack.
The photograph below shows the single
oven in the crematorium. Until the crematorium was finished in
October 1943, the corpses were burned in a mobile crematorium
placed near the farm at Struthof, about half a mile from the
main camp.
The photograph below shows pipes going
into what appears to be a shower room right next to the crematory
oven.
According to a book which I purchased
as the Memorial site, the showers were added in November 1943.
Although some tourists believe that this was the gas chamber
at Natzweiler, the book says, "The chamber used for the
gas experiments was placed outside the camp, near the farm in
a building near the hotel: the date when it began working is
impossible to tell, but it is known that during the summer of
1943, it was used regularly; it was there that during the summer
of 1943 particularly, some Jews, men and women, coming from Auschwitz,
were 'treated' with gas before they were killed."
The expression "treated with gas"
refers to experiments in which prisoners were subjected to mustard
gas and then treated for their burns in an attempt to find the
best antidote for the gas. Mustard gas had been used as a weapon
by both sides in World War I, so the Nazis wanted to be prepared
in case the Allies decided to use it again in World War II. As
a young man, serving in the German Army in World War I, Adolf
Hitler had been temporarily blinded by a gas attack, so he was
not inclined to use gas as a weapon, even though the Nazis had
deadly serin gas available as a Weapon of Mass Destruction.
The photograph below shows clay pots
which were used to send the ashes of dead German prisoners to
their relatives. There were at least 800 German criminals sent
to Natzweiler to work in the quarries there. The relatives had
to pay for the privilege of receiving the ashes.
The photograph below shows an autopsy
table in the crematorium. The bodies of prisoners who had died
in the medical experiments performed at Natzweiler were studied
here.
The photo below shows a room with bunk
beds in the crematorium. This was where prisoners, who were subjects
of the medical experiments, slept. Experiments were done to find
a vaccine for typhus and to find a way to treat burns caused
by mustard gas.
The crematorium building also has an
execution room where prisoners were executed with a shot in the
nape of the neck. It is just a bare room with a floor drain,
so that the blood could be washed away.
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