Sobibór 2008: areas of mass graves in the open field around the ash mound, as defined by deeper green hues in the vegetation (courtesy of Paul Bauman, Worley Parsons). 

Contexts in source publication

Context 1

... has not yet been fully exploited. As is the case with other types of World War II documents, there are few images of Sobibor. In fact, from March 1942 to November 1943 there are a number of photographs which do not contribute significantly to the archae- ological research of the site. Sobibór photos in books and articles are very rare and the larg- est number of images available is the on line collection on the web site of the Ghetto Fighters House (GFH) ( Most of the Second World War pictures here are of poor quality and their provenance and authenticity are not always known. Two air photographs of Sobibór taken by the Luftwaffe are of importance: one from 1940, be- fore the extermination centre was constructed (Fig. 10), and the second one from 1944, after the site was eliminated and the area re-forested (Fig. 11). Recent air photographs (e.g., 2005) are instrumental in attempts to locate old features appearing on the 1940 and 1944 photos, in the present day forested terrain (see below). As mentioned above, the site of Sobibór was excavated in 2001 by a team directed by A. Kola (Kola, 2001). The archaeologists used the same methods that were used in the 1997- 1999 excavations of Bełżec. Two main features were discovered (Fig. 12): seven mass graves in varying sizes in the area surrounding the ash mound and a number of structural remains south of them, adjacent and to the west of the asphalt paved lot where the monument is lo- cated. Building E is the largest and the most significant structural assemblage uncovered. It is about 60m long and is located in the south-west section of the area tested. It is interpreted as an undressing room where the clothes and belongings of the victims were processed (Kola, 2001: 121). We will discuss Building E further in the section below. For the moment, it is worth noting that in the current plans for future development of the site, this archaeologi- cal feature is interpreted as the gas chambers (Bem, 2006). In October 2007, acting on the assumption that we knew roughly where the gas chamber was located, we decided to dig first in the area bordering the west of Kola’s Building E. We worked in 5x5m squares which correspond to Kola’s grid, screened all the sediments we dug and used soft hair brushes to clean the surfaces we exposed. The sediment we exca- vated was sand, heavily mixed with ashes and burnt materials and artefacts. It was approxi- mately 10cm deep and overlaid deep layers of sterile sand. The nature and the extension of the archaeological deposit and the types of artefacts embedded in it indicate that the part of Sobibór we excavated is neither the gas chamber nor the undressing barrack. We recovered about 1,000 artefacts that do not seem to be associated with gas chambers. They included a wide assortment of artefacts made of different raw materials. Most com- mon were artefacts made of metal. In addition to hangers of security fencing, there were also fragments of barbed wire, as well as nails and a peg of a narrow-gauge railway. Bullets and bullet cartridges were also found, one of them even bearing the year of production, 1938. The bullets were deformed by fire. Also of note were an element of a door lock, scis- sors, knives, spoons, belt buckles, cigarette lighters and fragments of metallic cigarette cases (Fig. 15). There were many glass artefacts, including numerous fragments of bottles and jars. Many small bottles were most probably containers of perfume or medicines, while larger jars, some of which produced in the Netherlands, could contain disinfectants. We also un- covered fragments of dentures and glasses of spectacles. A one-week season in July 2008 was devoted to acquiring geophysical data. The work was carried out under our guidance by Paul Bauman and Brad Hansen of Worley Parsons Re- sources and Energy (Calgary), and Phillip Reeder of the University of South Florida. The geophysical team was organized and coordinated by Richard Freund of the University of Hartford. The following methods were used to acquire the data: EM61 High Resolution Metal Detection, GEM19 Overhauser GPS Magnetic Gradiometer, EM38 Terrain Conductiv- ity Meter, Ground Penetrating Radar, Low Altitude High Resolution Aerial Photography, and GPS Mapping (Bauman, 2008). The geophysical work was carried out in two areas of the site: in the open field south of the ash mound monument, where the mass graves are, and in eight 20x20m squares placed im- mediately south and east of the area excavated by us in 2007. In addition, low altitude aerial photography was carried out over the major part of the original perimeter of the site. GPS data were collected at various locations in the site and in the Sobibór train station and ramp. The results are being evaluated now and we can already discern the archaeological potential of different locales (Bauman, 2008). The low altitude photography from a weather balloon of the open field immediately to the south of the ash mound is illuminating (Fig. 16). It ap- pears to have delineated areas of mass graves in the open field, as defined by deeper green hues in the vegetation. This supports the conclusion of the 2001 coring activities carried out by Kola’s expedition (Fig. 17). It is possible that this conclusion will be further corroborated by the processing of several GPR profiles conducted across these tentatively identified mass graves. The aerial photographs also appear to distinguish areas of Sobibór from surround- ing forest by the subtle but clear change in tree canopy height and homogeneity (Bauman, 2008: 9). We have mentioned above, following Browning (1999), the difficulties inherent in the avail- able data concerning the spatial nature of Sobibór as an archaeological entity. The original blueprints of the site as drawn by its planners and builders were never recovered and they may be lost. It is, however, certain that such plans existed since Stangl mentions them (Sereny, 1983: 103). A blueprint of Sobibór may be recovered in the future, but until then reconstruc- tions of Sobibór rely on memories, most of which were turned into plans only decades later. About twenty different plans of Sobibór are known today, ranging from the one produced by the post war Polish investigation committee (Lukaszkiewicz, 1947), to the more recent plan of Rutherford (2002) and the Sobibór memorial map (Bem, 2006). Current research reveals more plans, especially documents from the former Soviet Union. For example, we have recently examined a 1944 plan of Sobibór, drawn by two Ukrainian auxiliaries who escaped Sobibór a short time before the revolt. A copy of the plan is deposited in the Yad Vashem archives. It is not easy to evaluate the relationships between the different plans. In order to partially overcome the problem, we compare plans by projecting them on the most recent air imagery we have, a 2005 air photograph kindly given to us by ImageSat International (Fig. 16). On this air photograph the asphalt road leading to the site, the Chełm-Włodawa main railway, and the rail siding that leads to the ramp of Sobibór are seen quite clearly. The comman- dant’s house facing the ramp is also visible, as well as the main structures and the monu- ments of Sobibór. Since all the plans of the extermination centre feature the main railway, its siding, the road and the ramp, we can roughly calibrate the projections. (Bem, 2006) includes a map labelled ‘Sobibór Death Camp Memorial Map’. It consists of a combination of the present day structures and monuments of the site, with the suggested reconstruction as their background (Fig. 19). The ‘Memorial Map’ identifies the Sobibór gas chambers with Building E, which in Kola’s opinion served as undressing complex. Ruther- ford (2002), follows this map in placing the gas chambers in the same place, although the structure he reconstructs is different in shape. It is obvious that the location of the gas cham- bers is a complex issue that has to be solved, an important objective for future archaeological research at Sobibór. there were two camps to their north, Camp III to the north-west and Camp IV to the north- east. The use of the term ‘Northern Camp’ as designation of Camp IV is therefore worth particular consideration. If indeed the remains of the labour camp in the northernmost part of Sobibór were discernable in 1945-1946, it is possible that these were the remains of Camp IV, which could be described as the ‘Northern Camp’. Alex Bay (personal communication) is currently attempting to use air photographs to locate structural remains north of the mass graves, which may prove to be Camp IV. Still, one should not easily dismiss the current location of the camp IV between Camp III in the west and the chapel in the east. It is based, among other things, on plans drawn by two well known figures in the history of Sobibór, Erich Bauer and Alexander Pechersky. Erich Bauer, an SS man, was considered a ‘reliable’ witness by the Hagen judges (Schelvis, 2007: 247). He served at Sobibór for about a year and half, and in the days before the revolt he was a truck driver. He must have been very familiar with the different parts of Sobibór. The plan drawn by Pechersky, and his model, also place Camp IV to the east of Camp III. Pechersky, who worked at Camp IV (Schelvis, 2007: 93), planned the Sobibór revolt, led it, and prob- ably had good spatial orientation. The location of Camp IV according to Pechersky is even more complex, since in the map used by Encyclopedia Judaica, Camp IV is to the north of Camp III and it is claimed that this map is based on a drawing by Pechersky (Dombrowska and Berenbaum, 2007:701). Still, the area north of the mass graves features remains of de- stroyed structures and earthworks, and an archaeological study of that part of the site can contribute to a better understanding of the layout and history of Sobibór. Of the four Nazi extermination centres very little is known archaeologically. Treblinka has ...

Context 2

... as the gas chambers (Bem, 2006). In October 2007, acting on the assumption that we knew roughly where the gas chamber was located, we decided to dig first in the area bordering the west of Kola’s Building E. We worked in 5x5m squares which correspond to Kola’s grid, screened all the sediments we dug and used soft hair brushes to clean the surfaces we exposed. The sediment we exca- vated was sand, heavily mixed with ashes and burnt materials and artefacts. It was approxi- mately 10cm deep and overlaid deep layers of sterile sand. The nature and the extension of the archaeological deposit and the types of artefacts embedded in it indicate that the part of Sobibór we excavated is neither the gas chamber nor the undressing barrack. We recovered about 1,000 artefacts that do not seem to be associated with gas chambers. They included a wide assortment of artefacts made of different raw materials. Most com- mon were artefacts made of metal. In addition to hangers of security fencing, there were also fragments of barbed wire, as well as nails and a peg of a narrow-gauge railway. Bullets and bullet cartridges were also found, one of them even bearing the year of production, 1938. The bullets were deformed by fire. Also of note were an element of a door lock, scis- sors, knives, spoons, belt buckles, cigarette lighters and fragments of metallic cigarette cases (Fig. 15). There were many glass artefacts, including numerous fragments of bottles and jars. Many small bottles were most probably containers of perfume or medicines, while larger jars, some of which produced in the Netherlands, could contain disinfectants. We also un- covered fragments of dentures and glasses of spectacles. A one-week season in July 2008 was devoted to acquiring geophysical data. The work was carried out under our guidance by Paul Bauman and Brad Hansen of Worley Parsons Re- sources and Energy (Calgary), and Phillip Reeder of the University of South Florida. The geophysical team was organized and coordinated by Richard Freund of the University of Hartford. The following methods were used to acquire the data: EM61 High Resolution Metal Detection, GEM19 Overhauser GPS Magnetic Gradiometer, EM38 Terrain Conductiv- ity Meter, Ground Penetrating Radar, Low Altitude High Resolution Aerial Photography, and GPS Mapping (Bauman, 2008). The geophysical work was carried out in two areas of the site: in the open field south of the ash mound monument, where the mass graves are, and in eight 20x20m squares placed im- mediately south and east of the area excavated by us in 2007. In addition, low altitude aerial photography was carried out over the major part of the original perimeter of the site. GPS data were collected at various locations in the site and in the Sobibór train station and ramp. The results are being evaluated now and we can already discern the archaeological potential of different locales (Bauman, 2008). The low altitude photography from a weather balloon of the open field immediately to the south of the ash mound is illuminating (Fig. 16). It ap- pears to have delineated areas of mass graves in the open field, as defined by deeper green hues in the vegetation. This supports the conclusion of the 2001 coring activities carried out by Kola’s expedition (Fig. 17). It is possible that this conclusion will be further corroborated by the processing of several GPR profiles conducted across these tentatively identified mass graves. The aerial photographs also appear to distinguish areas of Sobibór from surround- ing forest by the subtle but clear change in tree canopy height and homogeneity (Bauman, 2008: 9). We have mentioned above, following Browning (1999), the difficulties inherent in the avail- able data concerning the spatial nature of Sobibór as an archaeological entity. The original blueprints of the site as drawn by its planners and builders were never recovered and they may be lost. It is, however, certain that such plans existed since Stangl mentions them (Sereny, 1983: 103). A blueprint of Sobibór may be recovered in the future, but until then reconstruc- tions of Sobibór rely on memories, most of which were turned into plans only decades later. About twenty different plans of Sobibór are known today, ranging from the one produced by the post war Polish investigation committee (Lukaszkiewicz, 1947), to the more recent plan of Rutherford (2002) and the Sobibór memorial map (Bem, 2006). Current research reveals more plans, especially documents from the former Soviet Union. For example, we have recently examined a 1944 plan of Sobibór, drawn by two Ukrainian auxiliaries who escaped Sobibór a short time before the revolt. A copy of the plan is deposited in the Yad Vashem archives. It is not easy to evaluate the relationships between the different plans. In order to partially overcome the problem, we compare plans by projecting them on the most recent air imagery we have, a 2005 air photograph kindly given to us by ImageSat International (Fig. 16). On this air photograph the asphalt road leading to the site, the Chełm-Włodawa main railway, and the rail siding that leads to the ramp of Sobibór are seen quite clearly. The comman- dant’s house facing the ramp is also visible, as well as the main structures and the monu- ments of Sobibór. Since all the plans of the extermination centre feature the main railway, its siding, the road and the ramp, we can roughly calibrate the projections. (Bem, 2006) includes a map labelled ‘Sobibór Death Camp Memorial Map’. It consists of a combination of the present day structures and monuments of the site, with the suggested reconstruction as their background (Fig. 19). The ‘Memorial Map’ identifies the Sobibór gas chambers with Building E, which in Kola’s opinion served as undressing complex. Ruther- ford (2002), follows this map in placing the gas chambers in the same place, although the structure he reconstructs is different in shape. It is obvious that the location of the gas cham- bers is a complex issue that has to be solved, an important objective for future archaeological research at Sobibór. there were two camps to their north, Camp III to the north-west and Camp IV to the north- east. The use of the term ‘Northern Camp’ as designation of Camp IV is therefore worth particular consideration. If indeed the remains of the labour camp in the northernmost part of Sobibór were discernable in 1945-1946, it is possible that these were the remains of Camp IV, which could be described as the ‘Northern Camp’. Alex Bay (personal communication) is currently attempting to use air photographs to locate structural remains north of the mass graves, which may prove to be Camp IV. Still, one should not easily dismiss the current location of the camp IV between Camp III in the west and the chapel in the east. It is based, among other things, on plans drawn by two well known figures in the history of Sobibór, Erich Bauer and Alexander Pechersky. Erich Bauer, an SS man, was considered a ‘reliable’ witness by the Hagen judges (Schelvis, 2007: 247). He served at Sobibór for about a year and half, and in the days before the revolt he was a truck driver. He must have been very familiar with the different parts of Sobibór. The plan drawn by Pechersky, and his model, also place Camp IV to the east of Camp III. Pechersky, who worked at Camp IV (Schelvis, 2007: 93), planned the Sobibór revolt, led it, and prob- ably had good spatial orientation. The location of Camp IV according to Pechersky is even more complex, since in the map used by Encyclopedia Judaica, Camp IV is to the north of Camp III and it is claimed that this map is based on a drawing by Pechersky (Dombrowska and Berenbaum, 2007:701). Still, the area north of the mass graves features remains of de- stroyed structures and earthworks, and an archaeological study of that part of the site can contribute to a better understanding of the layout and history of Sobibór. Of the four Nazi extermination centres very little is known archaeologically. Treblinka has never been excavated and the entire site is now a monument. Bełżec was mostly surveyed by drilling immediately before the entire site turned into a monument. Thus these two centres, where at least 1,300,000 Jews were exterminated, cannot be excavated. In contrast, Chełmno was excavated and yielded numerous artefacts. However, since in Chełmno the entire pro- cess of gassing was carried out in a couple of gas vans operating near a large structure, and the disposal of bodies took place elsewhere, it clearly differs from the Einsatz Reinhardt centres. Sobibór remains therefore the only extermination centre where archaeological ex- cavations can be carried out. Although some structures have been erected there, such as the monuments and the local museum, the area they occupy is very limited. Camps I and II are accessible for excavations, and test pits can be opened anywhere in these areas. The area of Camp III is dominated by the ash mound surrounded by the mass graves. This part of the site should not be excavated, but rather studied by means of remote, non-invasive imaging techniques only (see above). Despite the mass graves, and the two monuments to their south, the south-western section of camp III where the gas chambers and associated structures were situated is large enough for future archaeological research. The area of the fore-camp is inhabited and cultivated now by local farmers, but if it turns into part of the Sobibór memorial site it may be excavated as well. In addition, the Sobibór train ramp also has to be examined archaeologically, when it becomes part of the memorial. Sobibór apparently has an enormous archaeological potential and it is important to exca- vate the site for a number of reasons. The available evidence, mostly oral history based on survivors’ recollections, is imprecise, and in a number of cases it contains spatially disori- ented information. Survivors who lived and worked in Camps I and ...