The deportees – from all over Europe

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The deportees of Kl-Natzweiler, from all over Europe, came from all horizons. Most were political deportees, including the “Nacht und Nebel” prisoners, but there were also Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals  etc. All discovered a world where they were reduced to numbers and “sub-humans”.

Nearly 52,000 people of thirty different nationalities were deported to the KL-Natzweiler camp or its annex camps: the largest number were Poles, followed by Russians and French, then Belgians, Norwegians, Luxemburgers, as well as Germans, Greeks, Yugoslavs, Czechs, Austrians, Lithuanians, Dutch, Italians and Slovenians.

Deportee in prisoner clothing. Drawing by Jacques Barrau. © Alice Peeters-Barrau