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Struthof
Natzweiler-Struthof was a Nazi concentration camp located in the Vosges Mountains close to the villages of Natzweiler and Struthof in the Gau Baden-Alsace of Germany, on territory annexed from France on a basis in 1940. It operated from 21 May 1941 to September 1944, and was the only concentration camp established by the Germans in the territory of pre-war France. The camp was located in a heavily-forested and isolated area at an elevation of . About 52,000 prisoners were estimated to be held there during its time of operation. The prisoners were mainly from the resistance movements in German-occupied territories. It was a labor camp, a transit camp and, as the war went on, a place of execution. Some died from the exertions of their labor and malnutrition – there were an estimated 22,000 deaths at the camp, including its network of subcamps. Many prisoners were moved to other camps; in particular, in 1944 the former head of Auschwitz concentration camp was brought in to eva ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vera Leigh
Vera Leigh (17 March 1903 – 6 July 1944) was an agent of the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive during World War II. Leigh was a member of the SOE's Donkeyman circuit and Inventor sub-circuit in occupied France until she was arrested by the Gestapo. She was subsequently executed at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. Early life Vera Leigh was born Vera Glass on 17 March 1903 in Leeds, England. She had been abandoned as a baby and adopted while still an infant by H. Eugene Leigh, a well-known American racehorse trainer with an English wife, who renamed his adopted daughter Vera Eugenie Leigh. After Mr Leigh's death his wife married Albert Clark, whose son Victor Alexander Dalzell Clark became Leigh's step-brother and friend. When it came necessary to name a next-of-kin Leigh chose Clark. Vera grew up around the stables of Maisons Laffitte, the training centre and racing course near Paris. Clark later remembered that as a child she wanted t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jewish Skull Collection
The Jewish skull collection was an attempt by the Nazis to create an anthropological display to showcase the alleged racial inferiority of the "Jewish race" and to emphasize the Jews' status as ''Untermenschen'' ("sub-humans"), in contrast to the German race, which the Nazis considered to be Aryan ''Übermenschen'' ("superhumans"). The collection was to be housed at the Anatomy Institute at the Reich University of Strasbourg in the annexed region of Alsace, where the initial preparation of the corpses was performed. The collection was sanctioned by ''Reichsführer-SS'' Heinrich Himmler, and designed by and under the direction of August Hirt with Rudolf Brandt and Wolfram Sievers, general manager of the ''Ahnenerbe'', being responsible for procuring and preparing the corpses. Work by Hans-Joachim Lang published in 2004 revealed the identities and family history of all the victims of this project, based on discovery of the prisoner numbers found at Natzweiler-Struthof in records of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sonya Olschanezky
Sonia Olschanezky (25 December 1923 – 6 July 1944) was a member of the French Resistance and the Special Operations Executive during World War II. Olschanezky was a member of the SOE's Juggler circuit in occupied France where she operated as a courier until she was arrested by the Gestapo and was subsequently executed at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. Early life Olschanezky was born in Chemnitz, Germany. Her father, Eli Olschanezky, was born in Odessa and came to Germany to study chemical engineering. He met Olschanezky's mother, Helene, at a dance given by the Jewish community in Leipzig. They were engaged on 1 August 1914, the day Germany declared war on Russia. Russian citizens in Germany were then subject to internment. Helene's father, a portrait painter from Minsk used his society contacts to arrange for Eli's release from internment after six months on condition that he report every week to the police station in Chemnitz. As an enemy alien, he was unable to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrée Borrel
Andrée Raymonde Borrel (18 November 1919 – 6 July 1944), code named Denise, was a French woman who served in the French Resistance and as an agent for Britain's clandestine Special Operations Executive in World War II. The purpose of SOE was to conduct espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance in occupied Europe against the Axis powers, especially Nazi Germany. SOE agents allied themselves with resistance groups and supplied them with weapons and equipment parachuted in from England. In September 1942, Borrel was one of the first two female agents of SOE to arrive in France by parachute. Based in Paris, she became a member of the SOE's Prosper network in occupied France where she worked as a courier. Prosper was SOE's largest and most important network in France and Borrel was an important figure in its leadership. She was arrested by the Gestapo in June 1943. She was subsequently executed in July 1944 at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. Early life Andrée Borrel w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diana Rowden
Diana Hope Rowden (31 January 1915 – 6 July 1944) served in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force and was an agent for the United Kingdom's clandestine Special Operations Executive (SOE) during World War II. Rowden was a member of SOE's SOE F Section networks#Acrobat, Acrobat circuit in occupied France where she operated as a courier until she was arrested by the Gestapo. She was subsequently executed at the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp. Early life Born in England, Rowden was the daughter of Major Aldred Clement Rowden (British Army) and his wife, Muriel Christian Maitland-Makgill-Crichton, whom he married on 16 July 1913 at One Mayfair Church, St Mark's, North Audley Street in London's fashionable Mayfair district. The marriage was not successful and her parents separated when she was still a young child, whereupon she moved with her mother and two younger brothers, Maurice Edward Alfred and Cecil William Aldred, to southern France as a small income went farther there tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josef Kramer
Josef Kramer (10 November 1906 – 13 December 1945) was Hauptsturmführer and the Commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau (from 8 May 1944 to 25 November 1944) and of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp (from December 1944 to its liberation on 15 April 1945). Dubbed the Beast of Belsen by camp inmates, he was a German Nazi war criminal, directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. He was detained by the British Army after the Second World War, convicted of war crimes, and hanged on the gallows in the prison at Hamelin by British executioner Albert Pierrepoint. Early life Josef Kramer, an only child, was born and raised in Munich in a middle-class family. His parents, Theodore and Maria Kramer, brought him up as a "strict Roman Catholic". In 1915, the family moved from Munich to Augsburg, where Josef Kramer attended school. He began an apprenticeship as an electrician in 1920. From 1925 to 1933, except for working in a department store and as an accountant, he was mostl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boris Pahor
Boris Pahor, OMRI (; 26 August 1913 – 30 May 2022) was a Slovene novelist from Trieste, Italy, who was best known for his heartfelt descriptions of life as a member of the Slovenian minority in pre–Second World War increasingly fascist Italy as well as a Nazi concentration camp survivor. In his novel ''Necropolis'' he visits the Natzweiler-Struthof camp twenty years after his relocation to Dachau. Following Dachau, he was relocated three more times: to Mittelbau-Dora, to Harzungen, and finally to Bergen-Belsen, which was liberated on 15 April 1945. His success was not immediate; openly expressing his disapproval of communism in Yugoslavia, he was not acknowledged and was probably intentionally not recognized by his homeland until after Slovenia had gained its independence in 1991. His autobiographical novel ''Nekropola'', published in 1967, was first translated into English (in 1995) as ''Pilgrim Among the Shadows'', and secondly (in 2010) as ''Necropolis''. The novel h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazi Concentration Camp
From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concentration camps operated by Germany's allies. on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Following the Night of Long Knives, 1934 purge of the Sturmabteilung, SA, the concentration camps were run exclusively by the SS via the Concentration Camps Inspectorate and later the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office. Initially, most prisoners were members of the Communist Party of Germany, but as time went on different groups were arrested, including "habitual criminals", "asocials", and Jews. After the beginning of World War II, people from German-occupied Europe were imprisoned in the concentration camps. Following A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heinrich Schwarz
Heinrich Schwarz (14 June 1906 – 20 March 1947) was an SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) and concentration camp officer who served as commandant of Auschwitz III-Monowitz in Nazi-occupied Poland and Natzweiler-Struthof in Alsace-Lorraine. Schwarz was born in Munich on 14 June 1906 and originally worked as a book printer. He joined both the Nazi Party and the SS in November 1931. Following the outbreak of World War II, Schwarz served with the Waffen-SS on the Western Front until October 1940, when he was transferred to the SS-Concentration Camps Inspectorate. He was stationed at both the Mauthausen and Sachsenhausen concentration camps during 1940-1941. Auschwitz concentration camp In September 1941 Schwarz was transferred to Poland and posted to the administrative office of the Auschwitz concentration camp. His initial duties included working as adjutant Adjutant is a military appointment given to an officer who assists the commanding officer with unit administratio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fritz Hartjenstein
Friedrich Hartjenstein (3 July 1905 – 20 October 1954) was a German SS functionary during the Nazi era. A member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände, he served at various Nazi concentration camps such as Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen. After the Second World War, Hartjenstein was tried and found guilty for murder and crimes against humanity. Camp officer Hartjenstein, who was born in Peine, began his SS work at Sachsenhausen in 1938. The following year he was transferred to Niederhagen. In 1941 Hartjenstein served for a year with the 3rd SS Division Totenkopf, a Waffen SS combat division. In 1942, he was appointed the commandant of Birkenau. This was the main camp at Auschwitz, which contained the extermination facilities and crematoria. In 1944 Hartjenstein was appointed commandant of Natzweiler concentration camp in France. In 1945 he went to work at Flossenbürg concentration camp. Post war trials Hartjenstein was arrested by the British and sentenced to life impriso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nacht Und Nebel
''Nacht und Nebel'' (German: ), meaning Night and Fog, was a directive issued by Adolf Hitler on 7 December 1941 targeting political activists and resistance "helpers" in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, who were to be imprisoned, murdered, or made to disappear, while the family and the population remained uncertain as to the fate or whereabouts of the alleged offender against the Nazi occupation power. Victims who disappeared in these clandestine actions were never heard from again. Name The alliterative hendiadys ''Nacht und Nebel'' (German for "Night and Fog") is documented in German since the beginning of the 17th century. It was used by Wagner in ''Das Rheingold'' (1869) and has since been adopted into everyday German (e.g. it appears in Thomas Mann's '' Der Zauberberg,'' or "The Magic Mountain"). It is not clear whether the term ''Nacht-und-Nebel-Erlass'' ("Night and Fog directive") had been in wide circulation or used publicly before 1945. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gau Baden-Alsace
The Gau Baden, renamed Gau Baden–Alsace (German: ''Gau Baden-Elsaß'') in March 1941, was a ''de facto'' administrative division of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945 in the German state of Baden and, from 1940 onwards, in Alsace (german: Elsaß). Before that, from 1925 to 1933, it was the regional subdivision of the Nazi Party in that area. History The Nazi Gau (plural Gaue) system was originally established in a Nazi Party conference on 22 May 1926 in order to improve administration of the party structure. From 1933 onward, after the Nazi seizure of power, the ''Gaue'' increasingly replaced the German states as administrative subdivisions in Germany. In 1940, after Germany occupied the French region of Alsace, Gau Baden incorporated the two Alsatian ''départements'' of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin, becoming ''Baden-Elsass''. The seat of the Gau administration was originally Karlsruhe, but moved to Strasbourg after the German occupation of France. At the head of each Gau stood a Gauleit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
