Natzweiler
In May 1941 with the discovery of a valuable source of rare red granite, the Nazis erected a new concentration camp in French territory. In the beginning Natzweiler was an ordinary camp, but later it became an abomination. The small, grim camp either worked its prisoners to death in the granite pits or killed them through unique medical experiments.

The prisoners followed a simple daily working routine. They worked 14 hours a day and stayed alive on half liter of tea, one liter of soup, 300 gram of bread, and 20 gram of margarine. The routine was broken only by a Chrimas with two days of rest. However, two prisoners would be hanged to celebrate this special holiday.

A gas chamber was added in the summer of 1943. Until the crematorium was finished in October 1943, the guards burned the bodies in furnaces on a farm. After the new crematorium opened its business, the camp orchestra played throughout the burnings.

In 1942 University of Strasbourg Professors Hirt and Bickenbach began an experiment that dealt with finding the most effective treatment for wounds caused by mustard gas. They applied the gas either directly to the skin of the subject or forced the subjects to inhale the vapor of the mustard liquid. The gas had destroyed the lungs and organs of the subjects. They all resulted in death.

Dr. Eugene Haagan designed typhus and other disease experiments to investigate the value of various vaccines. Doctors injected subjects with an anti-typhus vaccine and then infected them with typhus. Even worse, they infected some inmates just for keeping the typhus virus alive.

In early 1942 Dr. Hirt came up with the most unscientific project - to study skull of the Jews and find out how they differ from "superior" race. He gassed eighty Jews and preserved them in tanks in the cellar for his later study.

When the inmates expected liberation in August 1944, what came instead was a great influx of new inmates. The first evacuation convoy left on August 31 1944. Inmates were transported to other camps before the Allies came. The French First Army liberated Natzwieler on November 23, 1944. However, the SS had finished its "evacuation" by early September.