HISTORY

“Konzentrationslager Natzweiler” opened in May 1941 at a location called “Le Struthof”, in Alsace, which had been annexed. The Nazis decided to set up a concentration camp at this site to exploit the seam pink granite located nearby.

Designed to provide the Reich with slave labour, it mainly held prisoners of war, political deportees arrested for their anti-Nazi convictions, and Resistance fighters. It also held racial deportees (Jews, Gypsies), homosexuals and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

The deportees came from 31 countries and their numbers tripled in 1943, the year of the “Nacht und Nebel”, prisoners destined to disappear without leaving a trace. The logic of terror was complete with the installation of an experimental gas chamber and the commissioning of a crematorium.

Outside the Struthof site, the Natzweiler camp opened 70 satellite camps annexes, notably in Germany, nearly all dedicated to the war effort.

With the Allies’ advancing, the Nazis evacuated the deportees from the Struthof camp in September of 1944. When the American soldiers discovered the site in November it was completely empty, but the satellite camps continued to operate.

52,000 deportees went through this camp and its “Kommandos” between 1941 and 1945. Nearly 22,000 died – most of them from exhaustion, inhuman treatment or hunger, others from the pseudomedical experiments inflicted on them. The camp also served as a location for executing resistance fighters. With a 40% mortality rate, the Natzweiler camp was one of the deadliest in the SS concentration camp system.

THE SITE TODAY

The entire site belongs to the Ministry of Defence and has been listed as a historical monument since 2011. Since 1 January 2010, it has been placed under the administration of the Office National des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre.

Some 170,000 people visit each year.

At the former camp, visitors can notably discover four barracks, including the prison, the crematorium and a museum dedicated to the history of KL- Natzweiler. Photos, archived documents, objects and drawings enable the public to understand the camp’s founding, its organisation, the deportees and their everyday life, the satellite camps, the end of the camp, the trials, remembrance, etc.

The gas chamber, set up at the request of Nazi medical professors to undertake experiments, is located 1.5 km further down and can also be visited.

THE EUROPEAN CENTRE OF DEPORTED RESISTANCE MEMBERS

The European Centre of Deported Resistance Members (CERD) was inaugurated on 3 November 2005 by Jacques Chirac, President of the French Republic.

Designed to be a site for information, thought and encounters, it gives an introduction to the visit to the nearby camp.

Touchscreen kiosks, videos and photos laid out on 2,000 m² of exhibitions present the history of World War II, the resistance movements that rose up throughout Europe and the implacable killing machine set up in the concentration camp system.

The CERD sits above the “Kartoffelkeller”, a reinforced concrete cellar that is nearly 120 metres long, built by deportees. It has become a symbol of the oppression and the exhaustion suffered by the deportees through work and beatings. To this day, nobody knows why.

THE NATIONAL CEMETERY AND THE DEPORTATION MEMORIAL

On 23 July 1960, the “Memorial to the Heroes and Martyrs of Deportation” was officially inaugurated by General de Gaulle, President of the French Republic. A Memorial “Lighthouse” standing 40 metres tall and visible from the valley, it represents a flame and shows the emaciated silhouette of a deportee. The body of the unknown deportee, symbol of all the victims of deportation, lies in a tomb at the foot of the Memorial, along with 14 urns containing symbolic soil or anonymous ashes from the concentration camps in Germany. The National Cemetery holds 1,118 tombs of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who died in deportation, at KL-Natzweiler or other camps.

THE STRUTHOF NATIONAL CEREMONY

Every year in June, the Memorial’s esplanade hosts the National Remembrance Ceremony, which is held in two parts: a wake is organised on Saturday evening, attended by the last living deportees, during which people in attendance are asked to take turns maintaining the flame. The official commemorative Remembrance ceremony is held on Sunday morning, presided over by a representative of the French State (Minister or President of the French Republic).

TRANSMISSION

Welcoming more than 90,000 schoolchildren a year, the European Centre of Deported Resistance Members fulfils an important educational mission: transmitting history, of course, but beyond that to increase each young visitor’s awareness of his/her role as a citizen. This provides an awakening to the fundamental values of “liberty, equality, and brotherhood”, and a call to vigilance toward the extremist and racist threats that continue to face us today.

School group prices (reservation required at least 1 month in advance)

> 1 euro / student

> Free admission for one accompanying adult

> Educational workshop +20 euros per class (in French)

> Visit +20 euros per class (in French)

Free teaching aids:

http://www.struthof.fr/

Discover, review, work in class:

http://visite-virtuelle.struthof.fr/

Contact : pedagogie@struthof.fr

KEEPING IT ALIVE

The CERD regularly organises meetings between deported resistance fighters and young people to transmit their stories and in turn to make them “Passeurs d’histoire” (History Transmitters): preparation days for the Concours National de la Résistance et de la Deportation (National Resistance and Deportation competitive exams), defence and citizenship days, participation in national ceremonies.

The CERD also proposes exceptional days year-round: European Heritage Days, military ceremonies, conferences, events, concerts, etc.

There is an area dedicated to temporary exhibits on the mezzanine in the reception lobby.

Free GUIDED TOURS of the former Natzweiler camp are available (outside school contexts):

16 April / 15 October, at 10.45 am and 3.15 pm

1 March / 15 April and 16 October / 23 December, at 10.45 am and 2.45 pm.

(on conditions, for information please call +33 (0)3 88 47 44 67)

The number of participants is limited to 100 people per visit. They should sign up upon arrival at the CERD reception desk. Partial accessibility for disabled persons. Proper attire required. Children under the age of 10 must be accompanied and placed under adult supervision. The management reserves the right to refuse admission to anyone who does not show respect for the site and the memory of its victims. Pets are not allowed. As a site of history and remembrance, the site of the former Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp must be visited with respect for its victims. Schools will be held responsible for any damage caused by their students at the historical Struthof site or its exhibits.

European Centre of Deported Resistance Members – Site of the Former Natzweiler Concentration Camp ONACVG

Departmental route 130 - 67130 NATZWILLER

Tél. : + 33 (0)3 88 47 44 57 - Fax : + 33 (0)3 88 97 16 83

email : resa.groupes@struthof.fr

GETTING THERE

Departmental route 130 - 67130 Natzwiller - Strasbourg 60 km - Rothau 8 km

Practical information

Struthof website

Tourisme 67   

Containing the remains of French soldiers, the Saales war cemetery is characteristic of military cemeteries from the beginning of the First World War, and the treatment of the deceased soldiers. Indeed at that time, officers were usually buried in individual graves, while the troops were buried in mass graves. This principle lasted until 1915, but the use of individual graves was extended to all soldiers. The law of 29 December 1915 accorded all soldiers who died for France the right to be buried in an individual grave.

Begun in 1919 then extended in 1924 to bring together the temporary cemeteries of Schirmeck, la Broque and Colroy-la-Roche, this war cemetery contains the bodies of 1,487 French soldiers, 214 of which were placed in individual graves. Among these men, 54 British soldiers and 33 Russians are buried, 17 of which in a common grave. The remains of 1,273 servicemen were placed in three ossuaries.

In 1954, the bodies of 138 soldiers who died during the Battle of France in 1940 or the liberation of Plaine 1944-1945 were brought there.

In 1923, an equestrian statue of Joan of Arc was erected in the centre of the cemetery. Under the Nazi occupation, to avoid it being destroyed, this monument was buried in the cemetery and then reinstalled to its original location after the Liberation.

In the surrounding area, many remnants of bunkers and steles can still be seen, like the one erected at Muckenbach, commemorating the fighting of 17-18 August 1914 in Grendelbruch-Muckenbach.

Containing the remains of French soldiers, the Wisches war cemetery is characteristic of military cemeteries from the beginning of the First World War, and the treatment of the deceased soldiers. Indeed at that time, officers were usually buried in individual graves, while the troops were buried in mass graves. This principle lasted until 1915, but the use of individual graves was extended to all soldiers. The law of 29 December 1915 accorded all soldiers who died for France the right to be buried in an individual grave.

Inside the cemetery, an imposing stone monument is dedicated to the officiers, sous-officiers et soldats - Combats du Donon 21-22 août 1914. In the surrounding area, many remnants of bunkers and headstones can still be seen.

Pour accéder au panneau d'information 1 de la nécropole, cliquer ici 

From the First World War, there are 1,834 Germans, 388 French, 149 Russians, fifteen British, thirteen Austro-Hungarians and five Serbians buried there.

Visionner le diaporama

Pour accéder au panneau d'information 2 de la nécropole, cliquer ici 

From the Second World War, 2,008 French, 1,032 Germans, eight Yugoslavians, seven British, five Polish, five Australians, two New-Zealanders, one Canadian, one Dutch and one Armenian. Among them are buried the remains of the remains of some women, civilian victims or military nurses, and two children who died during World War II; Monique Ferret, born and died in May 1945 in captivity at Innsbruck (Square C, row 6, grave 6) and Jacques Budios killed during a bombardment along with his mother in August 1944 (Square C, row 2, grave 19).

In addition, the remains of two servicemen who died in Indochina are at Strasbourg Cronenbourg: Johann Jury, of the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion, who died 15 January 1953 at Cau Xa in Tonkin (square D, row 11, grave 19) and Helmut Kraska, of the 2nd Foreign Regiment, who died in Nam Dinh (Tonkin) on 7 October 1953 (square C, row 1A, grave 15). More recently, there was a sapper parachutist of the 17th Parachute Engineer Regiment, a native of Strasbourg, Michel Lung-Hoi, who died on 4 September 1986 in Jwayya, Lebanon.

It includes ten graves of soldiers who died during the war of 1870-1871. As a result of the First World War, next to the 91 French soldiers lie 475 Romanians, 122 Russians and one Briton. As a result of the Second World War, 536 Soviets including 493 in ossuaries, 358 Frenchmen, a Pole and a Belgian are buried there, as well as seven British pilots who died during the night of 24-25 April 1944 when their bomber crashed over Soufflenheim. A commemorative plaque was unveiled in this village in May 2014.

Nearby, a German military plot containing 188 graves was also created.