The corpses of Jewish prisoners in a vat filled with alcohol at the Strasbourg University Anatomical Institute.

The corpses of Jewish prisoners in a vat filled with alcohol at the Strasbourg University Anatomical Institute.

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]