25 November 1944. US soldiers discover the first concentration camp on the western front: Natzweiler. Inside the barbed-wire enclosure, the silence is total. Not a single prisoner remains. They’ve all been evacuated by the Nazis.
For these exhausted men, liberation isn’t for now. For long, terrible months, their ordeal continues at the “Camp of Natzweiler” relocated to the other side of the Rhine, in Germany. With perfect administrative mastery, the Nazis relied on the system of Natzweiler subcamps to keep the camp running. They even created new structures.
Until the end of the war, “Natzweiler” continued to enlist new forced labourers to serve the German war industry. The cross-border exhibition designed by a French-German team traces the unique history of this two-phase end of a concentration camp. It gives voice to the prisoners, who originated from across Europe, most of whom were survivors of death marches and chaos.
27 panels (120 X 200 cm)
