Natzwiller

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Natzwiller is a village and commune of the Bas-Rhin département, in eastern Alsace, France. Population (1999): 624.

[edit] History

Built around 1941 on the territory of the commune, Natzweiler-Struthof was the only Nazi concentration camp on French soil. The inmates originally were German who were to supply labor for building V-2 factories in man-made caves dug out of the Vosges Mountains. The prisoners would live in the cold, damp tunnels as they built them. Natzweiler-Struthof was expanded by the Nazis with the installation of a gas chamber and crematory for the mass killing of Jews, Gypsies, and captured Resistance fighters from Holland, Belgium, and France.