Natzweiler Gassing Victims (Warning: Graphic Content)

This photo shows a photograph of Menachem Taffel, who had been gassed at Natzweiler. His body was one of 86 found at Reichsuniversität Strasbourg upon its liberation, whereupon autopsies were carried out by Professor Camille Simonin.

Researcher Hans-Joachim Lang describes in this article (p.378) how Taffel was identified:

At the end of the 1960s, when the district attorney of Frankfurt initiated inquiries into Bruno Beger and Hans Fleischhacker, the former concentration camp prisoner, Hermann Langbein, saw a photograph that had been taken during the autopsies among the collected evidence. This photograph depicted a body with a number on his left forearm (Fig. 6). With the support of the archives in Auschwitz he succeeded in identifying the dead man as Max Menachem Taffel. Menachem Taffel, a Jew born in Galicia, was last known to have been a milkman who had lived with his family in
Berlin. From there he was deported to Auschwitz along with his wife and his 14-year old daughter on March 12, 1943. Apparently no one knew that the autopsy protocols had been preserved and thus Menachem Taffel remained for decades the only victim, for whom the prisoner’s number had also been associated with a name.

This finding converged with documentation presented in the Nuremberg case against Rudolf Brandt. On February 9th, 1942, Sievers had written to Brandt regarding the procedure to be used for obtaining human skulls for experimentation:

Following the subsequently induced death of the Jew, whose head must not be damaged, he will separate the head from the torso and will forward it to its point of destination in a preserving fluid in a well-sealed tin container especially made for this purpose [source]

On June 21st, 1943, Sievers advised Eichmann on how these Jews would be procured from Auschwitz:

With reference to your letter of 25 September 1942, IV B 4 3576/42 g 1488, and the personal talks which have taken place in the meantime on the above matter, you are informed that the coworker in this office who was charged with the execution of the above-mentioned special task, SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Dr. Bruno Beger, ended his work in the Auschwitz concentration camp on 15 June 1943 because of the existing danger of infectious diseases.

A total of 115 persons were worked on, 79 of whom were Jews, 2 Poles, 4 Asiatics, and 30 Jewesses. At present, these prisoners are separated according to sex and each group is accommodated in a hospital building of the Auschwitz concentration camp and are in quarantine.

For further processing of the selected persons an immediate transfer to the Natzweiler concentration camp is now imperative, this must be accelerated in view of the danger of infectious diseases in Auschwitz. Enclosed is a list containing the names of the selected persons.

It is requested that the necessary directives be issued.

Since with the transfer of the prisoners to Natzweiler the danger of spreading diseases exists, it is requested that an immediate shipment of disease-free and clean prisoners’ clothing for 80 men and 30 women be ordered sent from Natzweiler to Auschwitz. 

 Evidence of the gassing includes the "Bautagebuch" [building diary] shown here and Kramer's interrogation of 26.7.45 and deposition of 6.12.45 [here], although Pressac states here that only the deposition is credible. Evidence of the gas chamber itself is here.

There can therefore be no doubt that Taffel, shown above, had suffered an 'induced' death, and that gas was used presumably to ensure no damage to the skull.

Update July 29th at 4.27pm EST in reply to BroI's comments of earlier the same day at this thread:

1) Upon closer reading, Pressac's claims about the 26.7.45 interrogation of Kramer may be based on an incomplete translation used by Pressac. Below is Lang's translation and reference of the key passage (from this article p.377). In infer that the part I have bolded below explains the precautions Kramer claims he took against self-asphyxiation. I don't claim that there are no discrepancies between this account and 6.12.45:

[Testimony of the Lagerkommandant Joseph Kramer – HHStA, Abt. 461, SB II, Nr. 10/2].

With the aid of several SS-men I completely undressed (the 15 women) and pushed them into the gas chamber. (. . .) When the doors closed, they began to scream. I (then) introduced a certain amount of salts into the room through a pipe that had been inserted to the right and above the peephole. Then I sealed the opening of the pipe with a cork which was attached to its end. This cork was equipped with a metal pipe. With this pipe the salt and water was thrown into the opening of the chamber (. . .). I illuminated the inside of the room (. . .) and observed (. . .) what was happening through the peephole. I saw that the women continued to breath for about half a minute before they fell to the floor. After I had turned on the ventilation within the chimney, I opened the door. I found the women lying lifeless on the floor [A.a.O.]. 

2) The 86 tattoo numbers were written down in August 1943 and the list was found by Lang in an archive, as he states here:

When in the early morning of August 12, 1943 the first of four groups of gassed victims from Natzweiler arrived at the Anatomy-Institute of Strasbourg, Henry Henrypierre suspected unnatural deaths. Several unmistakable signs troubled the trained pharmacist extremely. All corpses had numbers on their left forearm. Although he could not explain their meaning except as an unchangeable mark, he attached enough importance to them to record them for a still uncertain moment of truth. He secretly wrote them down and presented the note or the notes later to the investigators. A copy of the note was able to have a determining influence on the direction of my inquiries. The archival finding though, did not reveal direct clues concerning the identity of the numbered persons. 

Lang found the list under ref U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum 1997.A. 0197, Reel 2, Departmental Archives Bas Rhin in Strasbourg Records, 1941–1944.

I believe that this is a scan of the list.

3) The tattoos on the 16 dismembered corpses were recorded in the autopsy protocols according to Lang  in this article p.378:

The autopsy protocols have been preserved [Copies have been preserved in the Zentralen Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg. (Copies of the military court in Metz on the criminal trial as the proceedings in the concentration camp at Natzweiler–Struthof. File 1: Rapport d’Expertise de MM. Les professeurs et docteurs Simonin, Piédelévre, Fourcade)]. From these it can be elucidated that Hirt’s coworkers had forgotten to remove the concentration camp numbers of 13 of the 16 cadavers and on three of the separated arms. In this way, 16 concentration camp numbers were preserved within the protocols. The French physicians were unaware of the meaning of the numbers, and even if they had been, it would have been impossible for them to use the numbers to discover the identity of the murdered. The complete bodies and body parts were buried in the North cemetery of the again French Strasbourg in the autumn of 1945 and, in 1951, moved to the local Jewish cemetery – but, as it appeared, forever in the anonymity of a mass grave.

I think you can contact Lang directly here.