KZ Natzweiler-Struthof was a German concentration and extermination camp located in the Vosges Mountains close to the Alsatian village of Natzwiller (in German language: Natzweiler) in France, about 50 km south west from the city of Strasbourg.
KZ Natzweiler-Struthof was the only concentration camp established by the Nazis on French territory, though there were French-run temporary camps such as the one at Drancy. (At the time, the Alsace-Lorraine area in which it was established had been annexed by Germany as an integral part of the German Reich, unlike other parts of France.)
KZ Natzweiler-Struthof was operational between May 21, 1941 until the beginning of September 1944 when the SS evacuated the camp into Dachau.
The total number of prisoners reached an estimated 52,000 over the three years originating from various countries including Poland, the Soviet Union, Netherlands, France, Germany and Norway. The camp was specially set up for "Nacht und Nebel"-prisoners, in most cases people of the resistance movements kidnapped by personal order from Adolf Hitler. They were to be destroyed by labor and disappear without their relatives knowing their fate. The camp holds also a crematorium and a gas chamber outside the main camp, which was not used for mass extermination; some Jews and Gypsies were murdered in it to provide "anatomical specimens" for the work of August Hirt at the medical school of Strasbourg University, located in Strasbourg, France.
The gas chamber of the camp is located apx. 1,5 km (1 mi) outside the camp at pos. N48º 27.316' E007º 14.665'.
Strenuous work, medical experiments, poor nutrition and mistreatment by the SS guards resulted in an estimated 25,000 deaths. Among those who died here were four female SOE agents executed together on July 6, 1944: Diana Rowden, Vera Leigh, Andrée Borrel and Sonya Olschanezky. Since the female prisoner population in the camp was small, only seven SS women served in Natzweiler Struthof camp (compared to more than 600 SS men), and 15 in the Natzweiler complex of subcamps. The main duty of the female supervisors in Natzweiler was to guard the few women who came to the camp for medical experiments or to be executed. The camp also trained several female guards who went to the Geisenheim and Geislingen subcamps in western Germany. Among the inmates were also the Norwegian resistant Per Jacobsen who died there and Charles Delestraint, leader of the Armée Secrète who died later in Dachau.
The writer Boris Pahor was interned in Natzweiler-Struthof and wrote his novel Necropolis based on this experience.
Link to Wikipedia [EN] Natzweiler-Struthof.
Link to Wikipedia [DE] KZ Natzweiler-Struthof.
Link to Wikipedia [FR] Struthof.