In June 2026, with the support of a German History Society Postgraduate Small Grant, I travelled from Scotland to the site of the Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp in Alsace, the only concentration camp the Nazis built on French soil, and spent four days working at its documentation centre, the Centre européen du résistant déporté (CERD).

My doctoral project studies the men persecuted under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code, which criminalised male homosexuality. Across the Nazi concentration camp system, these men came to be known as “pink triangle” prisoners, after the badge they were forced to wear. The Arolsen Archives hold unusually little on those sent to Natzweiler, and the trip set out to recover more about who these men were and how the camp was used against them.

The visit far exceeded expectations. Cédric Neveu, head of historical research at the CERD, maintains a database of every prisoner known to have been interned at Natzweiler-Struthof, and from it he generously shared the records of those he has found to carry a charge under Paragraph 175. Where I had traced 98 such men, the combined picture now stands at around 280, transforming the scale of the study to come. The CERD staff also sourced a substantial body of French and German scholarship, since ordered for closer study, and two interns, Noah Holroyd and Lothaire Ferrière, walked me round the former camp with great knowledge and warmth.

It is too early for firm conclusions, but the trip has reshaped this strand of the project, and I intend to develop the findings for publication in due course. My sincere thanks go to Cédric Neveu, to Noah Holroyd and Lothaire Ferrière, to all the staff at Struthof, and above all to the German History Society, whose support made this research possible.

Lewis Champion is a part-time PhD candidate at Royal Holloway, University of London.