Unprecedented archaeological excavations at Struthof, a former Nazi camp in France

It was in this long wooden barracks built by deportees in 1942 - the only one of this style preserved in the camp located in a forest in the Alsatian Vosges - that the deportees' food was prepared, often clear soups accompanied by a little bread or barley juice.

This is the last unrestored building in the Struthof camp and the first whose restoration is accompanied by archaeological monitoring as part of a memorial enhancement project.

Long used as a warehouse, the kitchen block will be opened to the public after its restoration, scheduled for the end of 2027.

"The goal is for visitors to be able to enter this building, (...) and better understand the life, the daily survival of the deportees," explains Michaël Landolt, director of the European Centre of Deported Resistance Fighters (CERD) at Struthof.

This camp and its annexes - built by the Nazis at the time when Alsace was annexed to the Reich - were the site of forced labor for many prisoners between 1941 and 1944, initially assigned to the extraction of pink granite and then to the dismantling of aircraft engines for the German firm Junkers.

Of the approximately 50.000 deportees recorded, 17.000 perished, according to the memorial.

Re-explaining History

Little remains of the barracks' interior, as the kitchen block was looted after the war. What survives are the large cement tubs in which the 50 kg soup jugs (sort of like pots) were cleaned; these jugs had to be carried by two prisoners under difficult conditions, down steep stairs, to the barracks for meal distribution.

During the Nazi era, prisoners dedicated to cooking worked there, under the supervision of a kapo.

The excavations should allow us to learn more: "it is about seeing traces in the building, both traces in the architecture but also objects that allow us to re-explain the history, to rewrite all the stories of this building from its construction in 1942 to the current state," explains archaeologist Juliette Brangé.

Under the floorboards, she has already found several objects: a small glass vial, some buttons, leather fragments from deportees' shoes, a comb and a voucher to obtain water.

This small, yellowed piece of paper with partially faded ink belonged to a post-war prisoner, sentenced to forced labor for collaboration, she explains.

Because the site, after its liberation, was used until 1949 by the French authorities as an internment camp for collaborators, before becoming a memorial.

At this stage, the archaeologist has not yet discovered any objects from the concentration camp period.

"Hidden Objects"

After the floor, she now methodically searches the dusty space located between the two wooden panels forming the walls of the shack.

Removed one by one and then numbered, the boards will be restored by a company in Besançon (Doubs) before being put back in place exactly in their original location.

For the moment, the archaeologist has mainly discovered wasp nests, she admits, and noted the presence of a kind of insulating paper between the two partitions.

"But we've only just begun," she said, "and it's entirely possible that, in a room, behind one of the partitions, we might find hidden objects."

This meticulous work and restoration are also part of a broader framework for the preservation of this type of memorial, according to the director of CERD.

"It is these traces, these places of survival, the places where the deportees lived, that will survive" after the gradual disappearance of the witnesses of this era, he emphasizes.

"And it's really important today to preserve them (...) to pass this story on to future generations."