Natzweiler-Struthof was a concentration camp located near the town of Natzweiler, 31 miles south of Strasbourg in the Vosges Mountains, near a popular ski center. The camp was established in May, 1941, near a granite quarry operated by the SS owned DEST Works (Deutsche Erd Und Steinwerke). DEST rented prisoners from the camp. The camp contained a large number of inmates referred to as "NN" prisoners (Nacht und Nebel-- Night and Fog). These were primarily members of resistance movements in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway. They lived in seclusion and were forbidden to receive or send correspondence. For example, of the 506 Norwegian NN prisoners, only 252 survived.
Natzweiler also became a center for medical experiments on prisoners. Scientists from the nearby University of Strasbourg conducted gruesome experiments in the effects of mustard gas, typhus vaccines and epidemic jaundice. The following description of the mustard gas experiments is from Feig, Hitler's Death Camps, and is based on testimony from the Nuremberg Trials.
"In one set the doctors inflicted wounds on the victims and then applied the gas directly to the skin. They recorded symptoms until death intervened. In another set of tests the doctors applied one drop of liquid to the lower arm of thirty subjects. Ten hours later burns appeared and spread over the body. Some subjects went blind, and all suffered terrible pain. After the sixth day, the first victim died. Seven more followed him. The gas had destroyed the lungs and organs of the subjects. In a third set of experiments the doctors placed two subjects together in Natzweiler's tiny gas chamber. They forced the subjects to smash ampules of the of the ... liquid and inhale the resulting vapor. The gas ate away the breathing organs of 150 inmates in that manner. Fifty died. Other subjects were forced to take the gas by injection and by mouth. None of the 250 experimentees had volunteered for that ordeal."
The main camp was evacuated on September 2, 1944. On November 23, 1944, the camp was liberated by the French Army. About 40,000 persons passed though the camp, and it is estimated that 10,000-12,000 died.
Erik Lordahl, German Concentration Camps 1933-1945, History and Inmate Mail (2000). Referred to as Lordahl.
Feig, Hitlers Death Camps (1979)
http://crdp.ac-reims.fr/memoire/enseigner/Natzweiler_Struthof/menu.htm
http://www.natzweiler.info/Frame/norske.html
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