“This discovery raises serious questions about who knew about these remains and why they did not reveal this sooner. We would expect a prompt and full investigation in to these matters, and the remains of these victims to be accorded a respectful burial in accordance with Jewish law as soon as possible,” said a Board of Deputies spokesman.
Some of the bodies remained intact – preserved, according to Toledano by Camille Simonin, a forensics professor who was investigating Hirt. A letter written by Simonin after the concentration camps were liberated at the end of the war mentioned “samples taken in the course of judicial autopsies carried out on the Jewish victims of the Struthof gas chamber”.
Local authorities are reportedly planning to return the remains to the Jewish community of Strasbourg where they will be buried at the cemetery of Cronenbourg.
Hirt committed suicide in July 1945 before he could be tried for war crimes.
