In the concentration camps, the health regime, and the labour regime, were such that the rate of mortality (alleged to be from natural causes) attained enormous proportions, for instance:—
1. Out of a convoy of 230 French women deported from Compiegne to Auschwitz in January, 1943, 180 died of exhaustion by the end of four months.
2. 143 Frenchmen died of exhaustion between 23rd March and 6th May, 1943, in Block 8 at Dachau.
3. 1,797 Frenchmen died of exhaustion between 21st November, 1943, and 15th March, 1945, in the Block at Dora.
4. 465 Frenchmen died of general debility in November, 1944, at Dora.
5. 22,761 deportees died of exhaustion at Buchenwald between 1st January, 1943, and 15th April, 1945.
6. 11,560 detainees died of exhaustion at Dachau Camp (most of them in Block 30 reserved for the sick and infirm) between 1st January and 15th April, 1945.
7. 780 priests died of exhaustion at Mauthausen.
8. Out of 2,200 Frenchmen registered at Flossenburg Camp, 1,600 died from supposedly natural causes.
Methods used for the work of extermination in concentration camps were:—bad treatment, pseudo-scientific experiments (sterilization of women at Auschwitz and at Ravensbruck, study of the evolution of cancer of the womb at Auschwitz, of typhus at Buchenwald, anatomical research at Natzweiller, heart injections at Buchenwald, bone grafting and muscular excisions at Ravensbruck, etc.), gas-chambers, gas-wagons and crematory ovens. Of 228,000 French political and racial deportees in concentration camps, only 28,000 survived.
In France also systematic extermination was practised, notably at Asq on 1st April, 1944, at Colpo on 22nd July, 1944, at Buzet sur Tarn on 6th July, 1944 and on 17th August, 1944, at Pluvignier on 8th July, 1944, at Rennes on 8th June, 1944, at Grenoble on 8th July, 1944, at Saint Flour on 10th June, 1944, at Ruisnes on 10th July, 1944, at Nimes, at Tulle, and at Nice, where, in July, 1944, the victims of torture were exposed to the population, and at Oradour sur Glane where the entire village population was shot or burned alive in the church.
The many charnel pits give proof of anonymous massacres. Most notable of these are the charnel pits of Paris (Cascade du Bois de Boulogne), Lyons, Saint Genies Laval, Besancon, Petit Saint Bernard, Aulnat, Caen, Port Louis, Charleval, Fontainebleau, Bouconne, Gabaudet, L’hermitage, Lorges, Morlaas, Bordelongue, Signe.