Natzwiller
How to speak of the Natzweiler-Struthof camp, the only concentration camp on French territory, then in Alsace annexed de facto by Hitler, when all the witnesses have disappeared? What message to transmit to the new generations? Eighty years after the arrival, on May 21 and 23, 1941, of the first 300 deportees from Germany tasked with building a camp 50 kilometers from Strasbourg, these questions are raised with new urgency. The opening of the archives, the archaeological research, without forgetting the precious words of the last survivors, give a glimpse of a complex reality. From then on, the Struthof camp cannot be reduced to a few strong images, such as the gallows, the watchtowers being restored or the portal, transformed after the Nazi period.
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“More than 52,000 deportees of 31 nationalities, including 8,000 French, were registered with the KL-Natzweiler. 40% died there, which makes it, apart from the extermination camp, the deadliest camp with Mauthausen ”,
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