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The body of a Jewish woman who was gassed in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and sent to the Strasbourg University Anatomical Institute for use by Dr. August Hirt in completing a collection of prisoners' skeletons and skulls.

Photograph | Digitized | Photograph Number: 78966

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    The body of a Jewish woman who was gassed in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and sent to the Strasbourg University Anatomical Institute for use by Dr. August Hirt in completing a collection of prisoners' skeletons and skulls.
    The body of a Jewish woman who was gassed in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and sent to the Strasbourg University Anatomical Institute for use by Dr. August Hirt in completing a collection of prisoners' skeletons and skulls. At the end of August,1943, eighty-six Jews, including 30 women, were gassed in Natzweiler-Struthof for the purpose of constructing a collection of skulls and skeletons to be kept at the Strasbourg University Institute of Anatomy, under the directorship of August Hirt. The individuals were "selected" at Auschwitz for their special bone structure and transferred to Natzweiler, where SS Captain Josef Kramer, the commandant of the camp, oversaw the operation. The corpses then remained in vats of alcohol for over a year, the project envisioned by Hirt having never been completed. When Allied forces approached Strasbourg in November 1944, SS administrators were unaware that evidence of the crime still existed at the Institute, and only at the last minute ordered the bodies destroyed. This operation failed, however, and 16-17 of the bodies fell into Allied hands. [Klarsfeld, S., ed. The Struthof Album, 1985]

    Overview

    Caption
    The body of a Jewish woman who was gassed in the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp and sent to the Strasbourg University Anatomical Institute for use by Dr. August Hirt in completing a collection of prisoners' skeletons and skulls.

    At the end of August,1943, eighty-six Jews, including 30 women, were gassed in Natzweiler-Struthof for the purpose of constructing a collection of skulls and skeletons to be kept at the Strasbourg University Institute of Anatomy, under the directorship of August Hirt. The individuals were "selected" at Auschwitz for their special bone structure and transferred to Natzweiler, where SS Captain Josef Kramer, the commandant of the camp, oversaw the operation. The corpses then remained in vats of alcohol for over a year, the project envisioned by Hirt having never been completed. When Allied forces approached Strasbourg in November 1944, SS administrators were unaware that evidence of the crime still existed at the Institute, and only at the last minute ordered the bodies destroyed. This operation failed, however, and 16-17 of the bodies fell into Allied hands. [Klarsfeld, S., ed. The Struthof Album, 1985]
    Date
    November 1944 - December 1944
    Locale
    Strasbourg, [Alsace; Bas-Rhin] France
    Variant Locale
    Strassburg
    Photo Credit
    United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park

    Rights & Restrictions

    Photo Source
    National Archives and Records Administration, College Park
    Copyright: Public Domain
    Source Record ID: 153-Case files 1944-49--box 001--file 81
    Le Musée de la Résistance nationale
    Copyright: Exclusively with source
    Published Source
    The Struthof Album - Klarsfeld, Serge (ed.) - New York: Beate Klarsfeld Foundation - p. 81

    Keywords & Subjects

    Record last modified:
    1999-05-05 00:00:00
    This page:
    https:​/​/collections.ushmm.org​/search​/catalog​/pa11979

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