Talk:Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp

message: Perhaps The source for the fact that the camp held a gas chamber could be provided.
: Is that a rumor or is it really a fact?!
:: Its' a fact : I've visited it. It was a small experimental one but many people were murdered in it.
:: There's a photo of the building on the french Wikipedia (coming from Commons I guess).
:: Papatt (talk) 21:44, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  The gas chamber still exists and its use is documented in court files and post-war studies. In Jean-Claude Pressac's, THE STRUTHOF ALBUM, STUDY OF THE GASSING AT NATZWEILER-STRUTHOF, for example.Bluespaceoddity2 (talk) 10:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: [Untitled]

message: The article refers to a "Gerry-rigged gas chamber".
The phrase is "Jury rigged" used by sailors to describe how a partly dismasted boat can be got under way by temporarily rigging a torn sail to a mast stump. It has nothing to do with the WW1 nick-name for German soldiers, commonly called "Jerry", not "Gerry". Historygypsy (talk) 23:42, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling correction needed 

message: This article is placed in a Wikipedia category as having weasel worded text since February 2014. I do not see such text identified so it could be changed. If it has already been changed, can that categorization be removed from the article?   --Prairieplant (talk) 05:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  weasel worded text? Where are the flags identifying that text? 

message: None of the statistics, like number of people in the camp in the years it operated, the documented number who died there, have specific references. Do these numbers refer to the network of smaller camps on either side of the Rhine River, administered with the main camp at Natzweiler? Further, are there sources for these numbers? I added a source for 52,000 people in the camp from a speech by a French government official in 2014, the 70th anniversary of a grisly day at the camp prior to the evacuation. The speech cited the total, but made no comments about the network of camps. The documented number who died, where is it documented? I have seen other numbers in various articles as I learn, and understand, more of what went on in this camp from the other Wikipedia articles, on line sources. It is hard for me to tell if the other sources are more authoritative when their number of deaths does not exactly match what is in this article. I hope someone else knows more about the latest as to counts. For one, the numbers in this article do not match those in the List of Nazi concentration camps (which has an odd source in the column for a reference). Interesting, but not definitive, I think. The other need is for someone who knows how to write a fair use note for this article, as there seems to be one for each English Wikipedia article that uses the photo of cadaver of the man killed in the gas chamber at this camp for that odd Jewish skeleton project. The photo had to be taken at the camp, or in Strasbourg where the bodies were found in 1944. I have not figured out how to write those, or I would do it.  --Prairieplant (talk) 21:48, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  does data cover main site or main site and network of camps? 

message: Eighteen people are named as Notable prisoners, all having a link to the English Wikipedia article on the person. In that linked article, their stay at this camp is mentioned. Two of the 18 wrote of their experiences in concentration camps (having survived) and their writings are noted at the end of this article (Bratelli and Ottosen). I do not have those writings at hand, to give a page citation from their writings. There are two names mentioned, in addition to these 18, as being tied to the Great Escape; I do not know who first added that text. There is no English Wikipedia article about those people and no source I could find (there may be a source, I could not find it). Those were marked citation needed. Now the whole section is marked as needing in-line citations. How much more is needed for those 18 whose names have Wikipedia articles linked to them, and sources in those articles? As a side note, this is a longer list than that included the French Wikipedia article, and interesting to note, this article does not include all mentioned in French Wikipedia.  --Prairieplant (talk) 09:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Delestraint, one of the 18 mentioned above, now has his English Wikipedia article and a citation from a French museum, with a quote from his story in French, also translated into English, showing his link to Struthof. Now the question remains about the other 17 who were not the leaders of the French resistance, receiving awards.   --Prairieplant (talk) 10:38, 15 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The Great Escape story now has links and a reference. There is also a reference in another section that mentions the four women SOE agents who were executed at Struthof. My inclination is to delete that flag for references needed, given the one most in need is done, and all the rest have their own Wikipedia articles mentioning their time at Struthof.  --Prairieplant (talk) 06:27, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notable prisoners & sufficient citations 

message: Sources indicate that the camp was discovered empty by the First French Army under the command of the Allied 6th Army Group on 23 November 1944, after the transfer of all prisoners and guards to subcamps and then to Dachau beginning in August 1944 (http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/natzweiler.html). The lede stated that Natzweiler was the first camp liberated by the US Army, while technically true that the 1ere Armee under Gen. de Lattre de Tassigny was under the command and control of the U.S. 6th Army Group, it was the First French under that liberated the camp. However, it was not the first camp to be liberated. On 26 October 1944, Canadian forces liberated the abandoned Herzogenbusch concentration camp (Vught concentration camp) in the Netherlands (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Vught.html), albeit some sources refer to Vught as a transit camp (http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/othercamps/vught.html). The lede was corrected accordingly.N0TABENE (talk) 13:12, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I do agree with you, it was indeed liberated by the French army in their way to Strasbourg. DeGaulle wanted the capital of the Alsace région to be liberated by a French army.--Gabriel HM (talk) 13:15, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: We seem to have a situation of reliable sources that say slightly conflicting things. All agree on the date of the liberation and that the camp had been evacuated of prisoners. All agree it was the Allied army that arrived. The museum web site says the Americans, the sources from NOTABENE say it was a French unit under the Americans, and Gabriel HM says that is how DeGaulle wanted it -- at least for the capital of Alsace, which means the city and not necessarily the concentration camp. This page at the museum's extensive web site http://www.struthof.fr/en/the-kl-natzweiler/introduction-to-the-history-of-the-camp/the-evacuation-of-the-camp-the-trials-of-those-responsible/ says in the first paragraph this was the first concentration camp liberated and by the American forces ("On 23 November, the day Strasbourg was liberated, the American army entered the camp, the first example of the Nazi concentration camp system discovered by the Allies in Western Europe.") How is that best handled? Do we believe one source and ignore others, or find a way to incorporate what they all say, and cite it? One angle is to say concentration camp, as transit camps, though awful, seem to be in a different category. Was the Dutch transit camp abandoned by the German staff as well as the prisoners -- does that matter?  --Prairieplant (talk) 18:20, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi , I said that Degaulle insisted that Strasbourg had to be liberated by its fellows French nationals, and it was on the way. The camp was indeed liberated by the French army. Here is another well informed source:  (I saw that you could read French on your homepage). The same problem is about the discovery of Hitler's residence in Baviere. The French army declared that it was them, and the Americans too. The situation back then was confused, the different sections were not very well co-ordinated, and the fact that the French were under the command of the American army is even more confusing for the restitution of the truth. I would say that at last, the more important is that they were fighting together and the nationality is secondary. But, in France it is well known that the camp was liberated by its army (under American command), and later the camp was used for detaining nazis and their collaborators. If someone has access to better sourcing, they are welcome, otherwise, we could argue on this subject forever. But once again the essential is that this place of horror was liberated by the allied forces.--Gabriel HM (talk) 18:39, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: , regarding the date of liberation, I reviewed sources for Herzogenbusch concentration camp, referred to as a Konzentrationslager Herzogenbusch in German and as Kamp Vught by the Dutch and according to the the official concentration camp memorial website history http://www.nmkampvught.nl/historische-informatie/. The Herzogenbusch Camp was liberated by the Canadian 4th Armoured Division on 26 October 1944, Natzweiler was liberated on 23 November 1944. If the dates are correct, then Herzogenbusch was liberated a month before Natzweiler was, and was therefore the first concentration camp in Western Europe liberated by Allied forces, irrespective of the statement on the Natzweiler website regarding precedence. I don't think it is worth continuing to discuss the point, but Natzweiler was not the first camp liberated. As to whether Herzogenbusch/Vught was a concentration camp or a "transit camp", read the desciption by the British soldiers who took over for the Canadians and decide if it was just a transit camp: http://ww2today.com/23-november-1944-british-soldiers-discover-horrors-of-vught-concentration-camp. N0TABENE (talk) 01:59, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Liberation

message: This seems like another important topic for better agreement with current sources. Who documented the 4,431? There is no citation in this article. Trying to hunt it out, I found that so many sources in English copy this Wikipedia article in whole or in part, thus also containing the phrase 4,431 documented dead, and with no independent source. Is it an old number now replaced by the work of Steegman? Do we change it to 20,000 estimated, citing the museum's web page, and his book? Does that number includes the main camp and all sub-camps, so we can safely leave aside separate estimates for the march out of the subcamps compared to the march out of the main camp? It would be nice to know who is the source of the 4,431 count. Enough for today.  --Prairieplant (talk) 20:08, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry - was away on vacation. I can find no reference for the “documented” figure of 4431 deaths at KL-NZ. The closest I could find is an error in the brochure distributed at Stuthof which states: «Les registres indiquent 4462 détenus immatriculés dans le camp...» However, the same brochure later goes on to state: «Les registres tenus par l'administration SS indiquent 44623 détenus immatriculés dans ce camp. La plupart étaient affectés dans des camps annexes tels que Neckargerach, Neckarelz, Schönberg, Erzingen (situé dans le Bad Wurtemberg) et Ste Marie aux Mines en Alsace. On estime que 10 à 12 000 personnes y sont mortes de 1941 à 1944. » (The records kept by the SS administration indicate 44,623 registered prisoners in the camp. Most were serving in sub-camps such as Neckargerach, Neckarelz, Schönberg, Erzingen (located in the Bad Württemberg) and Ste Marie aux Mines in Alsace. An estimated 10-12 000 people died from 1941 to 1944.) The numbers vary widely for the number of deaths at both the main and subcamps, partly due to the time period included in the source.The estimation of 22,000 deaths, which includes both the main and all 70 subcamps, is from Steegmann, the KL-NZ website http://www.struthof.fr/en/the-kl-natzweiler/introduction-to-the-history-of-the-camp/ and the International Tracing Service (for Displaced Persons) https://www.its-arolsen.org/en/research-and-education/historical-background/anniversaries/index.html?expand=3305&cHash=1d028eced3528fa37f944f328d548268. This includes 14,000 deaths which occurred just from Oct 1944 to April 1945, accounting for the disparity in the number given in the onsite brochure which only includes deaths through 1944. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates the number of deaths in all KL-NZ camps as between 19,000 and 20,000 for the period of May 1941 to March 1945 http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007260. The National World War 2 Museum gives a figure of 25,000 deaths without providing source referencing http://www.nationalww2museum.org/learn/education/for-students/ww2-history/ww2-by-the-numbers/holocaust.html. As you mention the figure of 22,000 for the main and all subcamps seems to be the most reliable based on consensus of sources (a mini-meta-analysis, so to speak). I agree with changing to number to 22,000, and omitting the individual figures, since there is no source that I can find for the figure of 4431.N0TABENE (talk) 22:12, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

text: Such good research, thanks. I changed the number in the article text as well. The French Wikipedia site uses the 25,000 estimate in their infobox, with no specific citation. We are much more in sync now and have a source for the estimate. Glad you went on vacation, hope it was good.  --Prairieplant (talk) 21:57, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  the 4,431 documented dead 

message: Unsourced has been deleted because it is based on confusion between two prisoners of same name (husband and wife).  Please don't add it back in.  I was the one who put it in there in the first place, and I'm taking it out.  There is no source other than the source that led to the confusion in the first place. auntieruth (talk) 17:44, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I reverted the statement, having looked at the article before reading this talk page and feeling it was reverted before anyone could find the documentation if it exists. This camp did not hold women, in general, per text in the article, and Agfa camp was all women, so it does not seem unlikely that a group of women prisoners coming through (N-S was a transit camp as well as its other roles) may have been sent to Agfa-Commando. We were writing at the same moment, it seems. So you are removing what you added at some past time, okay.  --Prairieplant (talk) 21:28, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced sentence deleted 

message: I changed the text in the Jewish Skeleton section. The reason to change the text is that the role of Natzweiler-Struthof in that bizarre skeleton project was larger than killing the people without damaging their corpses. Before that, the people lived for two weeks (quinze jours in French) eating well so they would be better specimens for the purpose of the study, which fact had not been in this article previously. This is based on information presented in a documentary by Sonia Rollet and others in 2013. The documentary won an award at a French film festival in 2014, as described in an article posted by RFI (radio France international, I believe) in 2014, also cited in this article. The film, 55 minutes, is posted by several people to you tube, always in French, always without subtitles. One posted it in four parts of 15 minutes or less. I cited the third part (using cite AV template) for the images of the corpses as found in Strasbourg, which images I find to be very powerful in conveying this particular part of the Nazi story and the part N-S played in it, along with the Reich University in Strasbourg. I cited the article about the documentary a few times, as it quotes from the documentary and describes it rather fully. I translated two quotes from the film to English, hope that was okay, citing the article, which included those quotes. I do not know if the documentary is restricted in any way, that might someday bar it from being on you tube. It was produced by Temps Noir, an independent film producer in France, whose website is not updated, showing 2008 as copyright date, and the film in production under a tentative name. Bless them, they have an English version, here it is http://www.tempsnoir.com/En/Production.aspx . The director was inspired to make this film from rumors she heard while a student at the university of Strasbourg (modern French version of the place), to prove them false, or as she said, to find the truth worse than the rumors. There is now a plaque honoring these victims at the medical school of the university, so the university has come around to the notion of telling the truth about what the Nazis did during the war in the University's buildings. In External links, I put the link to two you tube uploads of the documentary, one of the film in four parts, and one showing the 55 minute film in whole, using the you tube template, similar to the IMDb template, I have now learned. Please review to see if this reads well, and is adequately documented. 
:The only sentence in that section whose origin is still a mystery to me is the statement about most of the victims being originally from Thessaloniki in Greece. Is that on the museum site?  --Prairieplant (talk) 01:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Answering my own question, at the web site made by Hans Joachim Lang, noted in Further reading in the article, he includes a short biography of each of the 86 people who were murdered by gas at this camp for the Skeleton project. The place of birth for many was Thessaloniki, a city that had been large percentage Jewish in, say 1900, and after wars that brought the Ottoman Empire to an end, Thessaloniki was made part of Greece, a trade of Muslims in Greece for Orthodox Christians in Turkey changed the population of Thessaloniki. Then the Nazis overran Greece, and took many of those Jewish people to the concentration camps. So we can leave the statement, documented in Lang's work published as a book and at the web site for Die Namen der Nummern (The names of the numbers).  --Prairieplant (talk) 23:13, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fatten them up before killing them, another fact about the skeleton project added 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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*Added archive http://web.archive.org/web/20150208080253/http://die-namen-der-nummern.de/html/the_names.html to http://www.die-namen-der-nummern.de/html/the_names.html
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thread_title:  External links modified 

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replies: text: I checked the reference, it is correct, changed to checked = true.     --Prairieplant (talk) 09:17, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: "Four female British SOE agents were executed together on 6 July 1944:" in the german Wiki it is the 6th June 1944! What date is correct please? 84.155.48.34 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 10:19, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  discrepancy on date 

message: My concern is that images of crematoria in Holocaust history are associated with their use as gas chambers and incineration facilities. That is to say, instruments of extermination and genocide. 
As such, the prominent image of the crematorium in this article may lead readers to believe its purpose in this camp was as part of the extermination process. But as the article makes clear, with some exceptions, this camp wasn't an extermination centre, and the crematorium was essentially used for conventional cremation, not as a gas chamber, and not to incinerate the bodies of extermination victims.  
The places where crematoria were part of the extermination process were Chelmno, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Majadek and of course Auschwitz-Birkenau. In those camps, the ovens and crematoria were an integral part of genocide and mass extermination. Not so at Natzweiler-Struthof, hence my slight unease with the prominence of the picture.
:Your post is not signed, so I cannot address my reply to you. This camp was a place where people were murdered by gas chamber, and some were shot, and others died from mistreatment. None were left there alive when the Nazis perceived that they were losing the war and the Allies approaching. The people selected for the Jewish skeleton collection were murdered in that gas chamber in the small photo about 4th or 5th down in the text of the article. The photo in the infobox is one of the entrance to the camp on a foggy day. If you got the impression this camp was part of the extermination of people deemed not fit to live by the Nazis, then you have understood it correctly. Total deaths are estimated at 22,000 people. Inmates were meant to disappear in the Night and Fog, no trace of them left. That Nazi project was directed at anyone in Europe who was identified as a member of the resistance to Nazi occupation. I disagree with your view, and find the article to present the events that occurred at Natzweiler Struthof in the time of its existence with reasonable accuracy, and reflecting new information uncovered in this century. Your phrase "conventional cremation" is rather mysterious, as bodies were cremated to leave no trace of their existence after death at that camp. Burial would leave their bones behind. Each camp has its own story of atrocities. I am sorry for your unease at seeing the small photo of the jury-rigged gas chamber, but it was a notable part of this camp, and it was put to use, making the photo an essential part of the description of the camp.
:You might gain by reading the related articles, about Hans-Joachim Lang, author of The Names of the Numbers, and the Jewish skeleton collection, and August Hirt, who directed the project to collect the skeletons of Jewish people by selecting people from Auschwitz camp, feeding them for two weeks at Natzweiler Struthof, then killing them in the gas chamber, and transporting their corpses to the University facilities in Strasbourg while the university was under Nazi direction. The web site for the museum now maintained at the site of the camp is in the External links, and may also prove informative to you. If you have other comments, please do sign your comments by using four tilde characters in a row. --Prairieplant (talk) 11:45, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concerned picture of crematorium may be somewhat misleading 

message: I really do not like the interlanguage link format, with a red link followed by a two letter link to the article in the other language. I did not change what was done, but I very much preferred the direct blue links to the articles in other languages of Wikipedia that were already in place in this article.  has made several such changes, and I know some Wikipedia editors like that format. I really do not like it. I hope no more such changes are coming for this article, which relies on sources in German, French and English, and links in all three languages as well. Red ink/red link means a mistake to me, and no one has shown that the red ink/red link ever causes an article to be written in English Wikipedia, to take the place of the article in another language's Wikipedia. That is my say, after working a lot on this article to have good sources in it.  --Prairieplant (talk) 03:50, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: the reason for (red) interlanguagelink is very simple: translate the article and the link gets blue. If there is no red link, there will never be a translation. Thank you for your time. Lotje (talk) 04:04, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interlanguage links 

message: Hi!  Your recent edit to Natzweiler-Struthof introduced several errors to reference #22.  Could you please fix these errors?  Thanks, and happy editing!  GoingBatty (talk) 02:55, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: I moved your comment here, to the article's Talk page. Several refs generated errors when I was adding two images in the article, so I tried to understand why and how to fix them. The error message was that subscription=yes is deprecated, for the ref following the one you mention, which cited an image of the page in the NY Times reporting on the trial. The suggestions to replace that are found here. I do not understand how three words instead of one for url= replaces that parameter, but that is what I did. It took me three tries to get the NY Times ref correct, and in one of those tries I put the strange url = parameter in the ref preceding it. That is removed now. What is frustrating is that subscription= yes is still found at Template:Subscription required. The article gives no indication that it is deprecated. And more confusing, the advice at the Template Cite news page does not work either. I do have a subscription to the NY Times right  now, so I do not know what people see if they do not have such a subscription and want to read the source.  --Prairieplant (talk) 03:27, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

text: It just dawned on me that Template:Subscription required is something I have never used. I posted a question on the Talk page for cite news, asking for clarification of the Deprecated parameters and the suggested replacements. --Prairieplant (talk) 03:49, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference errors 

message: The text introducing the list of firms, added here, does not make it clear that all those firms were using forced labor at Natzweiler-Struthof. If that is so, could the text be expanded to say that? If it is not true, why was the list added to the article?  Thanks.  --Prairieplant (talk) 11:47, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of firms added to article 

message: "The first camp commandant, Hans Hüttig, was sentenced to life in prison on 2 July 1954 by a French military court in Metz. In 1956, he was released from detention after being imprisoned for eleven years."
1956 - 1954 = 11?--Maxaxa  (talk) 23:43, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hans Hüttig 

message: Elinruby (talk) 08:34, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Needs another source; Jewish virtual library is deprecated