| 12. |
General
view.
[South façade of building designated B.W. 43 by the
Natzweiler Bauleitung.] |
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| 13. |
Plan of
the crematorium hut.
[Drawn up on the 29 May 1945. The disinfection part
is not open to visitors. Many photographs of the shower room have been
inscribed as representing the gas chamber, because of the presence of shower
heads. Tourist guides also portray it as the shower room for SS-men, bathing
their plump bodies in water heated by cremations of skeletal prisoners. The
shower and disinfection rooms constituted an area reserved for prisoners and
not for the SS; in addition to water heating by the furnace, there was a stove
in the southwest corner of the cremation room that took wood or coal, and
provided the necessary heat when no incinerations were in progress. At the
present time, the room containing urns is in the place of the internees' room
(lodging for prisoners working on the furnace) and vice-versa. This bit of
historical editing is designed to give the impression that human guinea pigs
awaited, right next to the autopsy room, the pleasure of the SS to be taken in
for vivisection.] |
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| 14. |
Crematorium for direct incineration of four corpses in 35 minutes.
Foreground, entrance to the furnace; at the back, the hearth; above, the
water-heater which supplied the showers.
[An exaggeration. This type of
furnace incinerated 1 or 2 corpses in 30 minutes.] |
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| 15. |
Shovel
for putting corpses in and tongs for rnanœuvring them. [More
appropriately designated corpse stretcher or board.] |
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| 16. |
Goods-lift for raising corpses stored in the basement. |
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| 17. |
Autopsy
table.
[Normal and standard equipment in all incineration buildings, in
view of the presence of a so called forensic pathologist.] |
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| 18. |
Room
containing mortuary urns.
[It is possible that in a small camp such as
Natzweiler, the urn sold to the deceased prisoner’s family did in fact
contain his own ashes. In most cases they were filled quite
randomly.] |
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| 19. |
Urns made
of metal (to the right) or terra cotta (to the left), with indentification
stones on top. They were filled with any old debris and sold for 150 to 175 RM.
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