Once upon a Time...

… there was a small picturesque town in the Black Forest. In the early times populated by the Romans, it thrived through mining (mostly silver) in the Middle Ages. It withstood several wars and destruction by fire, and today the old city core shows well maintained traditional timber-framed houses from the 18th century. The town's name is Haslach.

The people here seem to have a funny bone. For example we found a statue of a pig (Doesn't this one looks like Babe?).

They show how much they care by making pole warmers for street lamps (what the…), and by warning you of the dangers of falling conkers.

They also have a Fiat Vintage Club.

Overall a seemingly peaceful and innocent place.

But… there has been a dark side.

Towards the end of the Third Reich Germany had over a thousand concentration camps, and one of them was right here at the hard rock (Amphibolite) mine 'Vulkan' in Haslach, where 1,700 prisoners from 19 different countries (but mostly French Resistance, Russians and Polish) were kept from late 1944 until the end of the war, and forced into labour in order to build a secret underground factory for machinery of war. Most of them didn't survive the inhumane conditions and torture.

Every day the prisoners had to walk through town and up the hill, whether they were wearing shoes, bandages, or were barefoot. They were starving and poorly dressed for the weather conditions. Some local folks tried to help by leaving food along their way but there was not much more that they could do without endangering their own lives. 

Other even poorer souls were held within one of the old mines and never saw the light of day. Men were beaten with sticks until the sticks broke, others were shot without reason. It is said that one of the most brutal German camp wardens was a man who had left school after second grade, because he could not keep up with the other children.

Today there is not much left from the gruesome Nazi activities. After the WWII the French Military had the mines destroyed, and sealed them off forever. 

Vulkan Memorial (Google Translate).
The gate in the back is the last remaining entry to the mine.

Unfortunately many of the devils in charge back then were able to lead relatively unharmed lives afterwards, like the commander of the Vulkan base camp Karl Buck (Google Translate), who was sentenced to death by the allies various times, but eventually pardoned and lived for another twenty years as a free man in Germany.

For German generations to follow, places like this one are a constant reminder that we must not allow crimes like that to ever happen again. A plate at the memorial claims: "One is not only responsible for what one does, but also for what one let allow to happen." (by Roman Herzog, former Federal President of Germany).