Remains of victims of Nazi experiments found

PARIS -- It started with a letter, a brief reference to samples taken from the bodies of Holocaust victims used in Nazi medical research.

Decades later, the jars and test tubes found behind a glass cupboard in a locked room testified to history's horror.

Raphael Toledano, a researcher from Strasbourg who has spent more than a decade delving into the French city's Nazi past, stumbled upon the 1952 letter from Camille Simonin, director of the forensic science school at the University of Strasbourg, detailing the storage of tissue samples taken from some of the 86 Jews gassed for the experiments of August Hirt, a notorious Nazi anatomy researcher.

The samples were intended to be used to prosecute Hirt, who directed the construction of a gas chamber built to provide victims for experiments carried out at the facility.

Strasbourg was liberated by the Americans, Hirt committed suicide, and the remains ended up in the forensic science museum at the university, which has become one of France's most prestigious medical schools.

Simonin's letter was directed at a judge who planned to put Hirt on trial, asking whether the samples could be of use. It's not known how or whether the judge responded, said Jean-Sebastien Raul, the institute's current director.

The samples apparently were forgotten until July 9, when Toledano and Raul cracked open the door. The storage container, jar and test tubes, holding a fragment of human skin and other body samples, were labeled just as the letter detailed, Toledano said.