Marek Bem Wojciech Mazurek SOBIBÓR archaeological research

Sobibór - badania archeologiczne...

Marek Bem Wojciech Mazurek

SOBIBÓRarchaeological research conducted on the site of the

former German extermination centre in Sobibór2000-2011

“Oh earth, cover not thou my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest”

Marek Bem, Wojciech Mazurek

Published byThe Foundation for “Polish-German Reconciliation”

Publications subsidised with the financial resources of the Dutch Province of Gelderland

Translation of “Archaeological Research Conducted on the Site of the Former German Extermination Centre in Sobibór in the Years 2000-2011” from Polish

into English – Natalia Sarzyńska-Wójtowicz and Jack Dunster

Edited by Marek Bem

Desktop publishing Cezary Majewski

Cover design Anna Daniluk

Copyright © by Marek Bem

Printed by Drukarnia BIGA-DRUK, s.c. C. Wałachowski, J. Leszczyński Radom, ul. Tartaczna 16/18

ISBN 978-83-930100-9-7

Warszawa/Włodawa 2012

The authors of this book would like to thank the Foundation for “Polish-German Reconciliation”, as well as Natalia Sarzyńska-Wójtowicz and Jack Dunster from the Teacher’s College in Chełm for their contribution to the preparation of this

publication.

Sobibór - badania archeologiczne...

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Does nothing really remain of the camp in Sobibór? A short history of the camp’s liquidation

3. The first inquiries, investigations and scientific research and the topography of the camp

4. A few comments on the plans, sketches and drawings describing the area of the camp

Prologue 2000

The results of the archaeological research on the site of the former 5. German extermination camp in Sobibór (conducted in 2001-2011)

- research in 2001 - research in 2004 - research in 2007 - research in 2008 - research in 2009 - research in 2010 - research in 2011

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Sobibór - archaeological research...

Introduction

The aim of this study is to present the scope and the results of the archaeological research conducted in 2000-2011, in the area of the former German extermination centre in Sobibór. In this study, mention must be made of the various historiographic materials that served as an important complement to the plans of the subsequent archaeological field expeditions. Their analysis and verification in terms of their archaeological ‘usefulness’, were a very important aspect in shaping the final methodology and range of the geophysical and excavation work. A very important role was played here by the gathered historical sources. These had made it possible to describe what other relics might still be hidden in the soil of Sobibór, after the camp was liquidated and demolished. In addition, what has also proved useful in establishing the topography of the former camp were the various inquiries, investigations and the scientific research undertaken in previous decades. In this, special attention was paid to graphic historical resources like maps, sketches, drawings and photos, as well as the camp witnesses’ accounts, whose details of the camp infrastructure gave the researchers the chance to pinpoint the location of possible relics in the present space of the post-camp area.

In preparation for the scheduled excavations and geophysical penetrations, the researchers also took into account the interpretation of the previous investments in the area of the former camp. These are connected with the various ways of commemorating the place, as well as the ways that this site was made accessible to visitors. On the one hand, such initiatives should be treated as exemplifying the state of historical knowledge about the place and the circumstances that have already been commemorated. On the other hand, they gave the researchers the opportunity to become familiar with the degree of purely mechanical interference in the camp relics which could possibly be still there. During the archaeological excavations, all the participants had access to the so-called ’Sobibór archives,’ whose collection enabled them to assess and evaluate the necessary plans and the results of their research.

SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor, a German extermination centre in Sobibór, operated from March, 1942 (the first Jewish transports arrived here as early as April) until October, 1943. The vast majority of the newcomers were sent for immediate extermination. Jews from Poland, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, Holland and the occupied territories of the USSR were brought here. In my view, the


number of people murdered in this complex (taking into account all the calculations made so far), was at least 300,000. This figure is however, dependent upon the still-unresolved question of the poorly documented railway deportations to Sobibór from places like Lublin, Warsaw, Trawniki, Sampol, Tuchów, Smoleńsk, Mohylew, Borbujsk, Dubienka and Lvov. Resolving this problem could perhaps confirm that indeed, at least 300,000 people were exterminated in Sobibór. Indeed, it cannot be excluded that the number could actually have been bigger.

The decision to build the camp was most probably taken at the end of the Summer of 1941. Hauptsturmführer SS Richard Thomalla, head of the Central Building Administration and Police in Zamość, was in charge of the construction work of the ‘SS-Sonderkommando Sobibor’. In April, 1942, an area of more than 30 hectares, on the west side of the Chełm-Włodawa railway line, was surrounded by a 2.5-metre-high barbed wire fence interwoven from the outer side with fir branches. Watchtowers were built along the fence, and additionally, in 1943, a strip of land surrounding the camp was mined. The buildings constructed on the camp area constituted separate complexes. These were: Vorlager (the SS administration area), Camps I, II, III and IV. Each camp was additionally surrounded by an inner barbed wire fence, forming in this way an isolated whole separated from the rest of the camps. The protection of the road to the gas chamber, which ran in a curved line from Camp II to Camp III (the place of immediate extermination), was particularly strengthened. It was called the ‘Heavenly Way.’

Each new transport meant that the whole camp had to focus on just one goal: the extermination of the newcomers. Upon their arrival, the German SS men, as well as Ukrainian guards, became heavily engaged in the unloading, guarding and eradication of the new arrivals. The transport (usually train transport) was divided into several parts and a few wagons at a time were rolled onto the ramp. The camp gate was closed. The old, the disabled and the ill were loaded onto the wagons of the camp narrow-gauge railway and were told that they were going to the Lazaret [field hospital]. Instead, they were shot dead in Camp III. The rest of the newcomers were sent to Camp II. From there, naked and already divided into groups, they were herded to the gas chambers. In doing this, the women went first through a barrack where some prisoners (the so-called barbers) sheared their hair (which was considered to be of economic value). The gas chambers were furnished in such a way as to look like typical bath houses. At first, these could accommodate 200 people at a time. After the restructuring of the gas chambers, their capacity doubled. The victims were killed by means of exhaust fumes pumped in the chambers from a special annex with a petrol engine inside. The gassing procedure lasted a dozen or so minutes. When the gassing was over, the corpses were removed from the chambers and searched for hidden valuables (anything of value was removed, including fillings and dental work). Next, the bodies were trundled to and then placed into the mass graves in Camp III. In the Autumn of 1942, the corpses of the victims began to be incinerated on special grills


made from rail tracks, in open-air crematoria. The layers of bodies were interlaced with wooden logs, and then the bodies were poured over with a flammable substance and set on fire. The ashes were then thrown into pits dug in Camp III.

A few hundred Jewish prisoners-labourers were permanently kept in the camp. The Germans used them to do different types of forced manual labour. On the 14th of October, 1943, an armed revolt broke out - led by Aleksander Peczerski and Leon Feldhendler. This resulted in a mass escape of the camp prisoners in which, most of the 500-600 prisoners managed to escape. The Germans, however, captured and shot many of them, and only several dozen of the escapees eventually survived. The success of this organised revolt drove the Germans to decide upon the instantaneous liquidation of the camp. They tried to carefully obliterate any trace of their mass murder. The gas chambers, the barracks and the fences were torn down, and the debris and the materials left after the dismantling of the buildings were driven away from the camp. A pine tree forest was then planted over the empty spaces.

When we analyse the tragedy of the Sobibór camp, it is not enough to realise the enormous scale of the crimes committed there. The evil which Sobibór symbolises, did not come to life the moment the gates of the camp opened for the first time; neither did it die with its liquidation. Extermination carried out in this perfectly organised way revealed the new face of modern civilisation. If such an industrialised mass genocide happened once, there is a chance that it will happen again because here it proved to be something that remains within the bounds of human possibility. This disquieting realisation cannot allow us to forget about Sobibór and other places where the Holocaust took place. It also warns us against relativising the true meaning of these places. However, no one so far has managed to fully reconstruct the tragedy of those more than 300,000 people that were killed in this camp. All the data collected in the form of archives, library or archaeological collections still remains inadequate.

The tragedy of Sobibór is a sum of different phenomena, not only those perceivable by human senses, but also those happening inside the victims’ minds - their physical and psychic suffering. How come, then, that it was possible, in just one place, to commit as many as 300,000 murders? And what is truly absolutely terrifying is the thought that Nazi-Germany committed these crimes completely undisturbed.

The historiography of the Sobibór extermination camp can be divided into two stages. One covered the period between 1944 and 1993. The other one has lasted from 1993 up to now. In 1993, Jules Schelvis published, in Holland, his book entitled ‘Vernietigingskamp Sobibor’. This should be treated as the first monography of the Sobibór camp’s history. It can be assumed that this publication sums up, in Europe, a period of more or less successful investigations, research and studies on the extermination camp of Sobibór. Some of this work has proved to be a substantial contribution to the attempts at recording the camp’s history. Unfortunately, most of it


treats the problem selectively, avoiding any critical or comparative analysis of issues which are of vital importance.

The beginning of the second stage of the camp’s historiography, is marked by the construction, on the site of the former camp, of the Museum of the Former Nazi Extermination Camp in Sobibór. The official opening of this institution took place on the 14th of October, 1993, the 50th anniversary of the armed revolt of the Sobibór prisoners. The museum immediately started to conduct, independently and in cooperation with many other institutions and individual persons, many research projects aiming at broadening the general knowledge of the camp in Sobibór, and of the Holocaust and World War Two in general.

Soon, the area of the former camp was the focus of much archaeological and geophysical research (which took place in the years: 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011). In addition, the museum made contact with all the living survivors of the camp. In this work, their memoirs, diaries and journals were compled and translated. Moreover, preliminary archival research was commenced on a large scale. The usual museum activities were of great importance, too. These included, among others, the preparation and presentation in many European museums, of the first-in-the-world temporary exhibition ‘From the Ashes of Sobibór’, as well as conferences, workshops and scientific seminars. Much information and many promotional materials about the Sobibór Death Camp Memorial Site were also published. All these different museum activities contributed to a great extent to the increase in general interest in the subject of Sobibór, both in Poland and abroad. In many cases they have also led to very concrete, yet sometimes astonishing scientific results.

Sobibór was the most mysterious of all the extermination camps and so far hardly any official documentation of the camp has been found, since most of it was purposely destroyed1. Indeed, according to Jules Schelvis, a historian dealing with the problem of the Sobibór camp, very few unofficial and official documents concerning both Sobibór and the other death camps, have survived. After the successful revolt and escape of Sobibór prisoners, Globocnik wrote in his letter to Himmler that it was necessary to destroy all the evidence of the existence of this place as soon as possible. As a result, almost all of the documents were burnt soon afterwards’2.

Quite understandably, any attempts to describe the history of the German extermination centre have met with many problems for a variety of reasons. The main reason is a total lack of German documents concerning this issue. Additionally, the materials compiled by the Central Commission for the Investigation of German War Crimes in Poland, which between 1945 and 1946 carried out the first inquiries,

1 Tomasz Blatt, From the Ashes of Sobibór, Włodawa 2003, p. 280.2 Jules Schelvis, A History of a Nazi Death Camp in Sobibor, Washington 2007, p. 2 (Odilo Globoc-

nik in his letter to Himmler from 5th January 1944, Bundesarchiv Koblenz (A) BA-NS-19-3425).


investigations and scientific research into Sobibór, turned out to be too general in character and not accurate enough. Another problem is that all the other sorts of resource materials are scattered around many different places. Therefore, we have to accept the fact that there is practically no collection of source documents which would help us in any way to explain issues such as the construction of the extermination centre in Sobibór, its functioning and liquidation. With the exception of a few railway letters (concerning Jewish transports, stolen Jewish property, or the transportation of a group of prisoners from Treblinka selected for the demolition of the Sobibór camp), orders connected with the plans to change this extermination centre into a concentration camp, reports on the chased-after escaped camp prisoners, Höfle’s telegram or a few indirect documents (e.g. personal documents of the camp staff), the Sobibór historiography has had no access to any direct resource material.

Therefore, the only way to reconstruct the history of this extermination centre is to rely on the different accounts, testimonies, memoirs and journals of former camp prisoners, who survived the camp revolt and the war in general, the various accounts of witnesses from outside the camp, as well as evidentiary material collected during criminal investigations and court cases against members of the camp personnel. Regrettably, only a handful of them (which only concerns witnesses from outside the camp and one Ukrainian guard) were written at the time when the camp was still operational. All the others come from the years following 1944.

The first pieces of information about the German extermination centre in Sobibór appeared practically the moment it started to operate. Like all the subsequent ones, these were not certain or precise enough, but still they had one thing in common. They described crimes so atrocious and cruelties so unspeakable that were done for reasons so complicated, that the general public refused to believe them.

Szymon Wiesenthal wrote how some SS soldiers cynically, for fun, once warned a group of Jews:

‘No matter how this war will end, we have already won our war against you. None of you will survive. Even if any of you survive and talk about it, the world will not believe. Instead, suspicions will arise, discussion will begin, historians will start their research, but they will never be sure because we will not only have killed you, but we will have destroyed all your evidence, as well. And even if any evidence were to survive, people will declare that the things you have told them about, are too monstrous to believe. They will say that all this is just the importunate propaganda of the Allies. They will believe us, i.e. they will believe all our denials. It is us who will dictate the camp history to the world’3.

Can we not say that the words quoted by Wiesenthal hide the truth about Sobibór? After all, at present there are people who do not want to believe the stories of those 3 Primo Levi, Pogrążeni i ocaleni [The Drowned and the Saved], Kraków 2007, pp. 7-8.


who had survived the German extermination centre in Sobibór or life under the Nazi regime in World War II. In Sobibór, all the material evidence of mass murder was destroyed; the camp archives were burnt. So far it has been difficult to state how many people the Germans killed there. No accounts or testimonies of Camp III prisoners have ever been found, which could tell us where the gas chambers and mass graves were. The way in which the Germans killed their victims was kept strictly confidential in order to hide the truth from the rest of the camp prisoners.

All the descriptions of the actual extermination process in Sobibór come solely from SS men. During their court trials, members of the Sobibór camp personnel, in fear of being punished, tried to diminish their responsibility and the role they had played in the extermination of Jews. Showing no emotion and limiting themselves to giving the dry facts, they pretended not to be able to remember many things and always presented themselves as innocent. They claimed that they had been forced to carry out orders. Yet, however, they had put a lot of effort to make sure that none of the witnesses would stay alive. No information that leaked to the outside world, i.e. to Polish, European or world public, had any impact on what the Germans had determined to do, and what they actually did in Sobibór. Completely undisturbed, they built a camp in which they murdered more than 300,000 Jews. They carried on with their murders for over eighteen months. I have never heard of a single case in which anyone from the outside had tried to stop them. When the decision to liquidate the camp was made, the Sobibór staff did that slowly and wilfully. Most of the buildings were torn down and the rest of the camp infrastructure was burnt down or blown up. The area of the camp was carefully levelled and a forest was planted over the pits containing the victims’ ashes. The forest still grows in the same place. When World War II ended, hardly anyone remembered about the site of the former camp. In 1965, a commemorative plaque appeared which informed people that in the Sobibór extermination camp, Russian prisoners of war had been murdered. However, it was as late as 2001, as a result of the first post-war archaeological research, that the world found out about the places where the Germans had buried the ashes of over 300,000 victims of the camp. The subsequent archaeological expeditions of 2004-2011 uncovered other evidence of the crimes committed by the Germans in Sobibór.

Disclosing the truth about Sobibór is a long story, one full of twists and turns. The SS did everything possible to cover up the truth about the camp. The outside world knew what was going on there, but did little to put an end to the extermination of Jews. Nonetheless, something happened which the Germans would never have expected and which did not happen as a result of any help, reaction or action on the part of the outside world. It was the Sobibór prisoners themselves who found enough strength to put up armed resistance against their perpetrators. They did so by organising an armed revolt during which they killed some of the camp staff members and escaped from the camp on 14th October, 1943. Several days after the revolt, the Germans took the decision to liquidate the camp. The escaped prisoners


started, already at the beginning of 1944, to reveal to the world the truth about their experiences in Sobibór. However, even until today, Germany has never issued a single written statement saying “We are sorry” which can be displayed on the site of the former camp and present museum and where we can find several commemoration plaques. Thus, there is a lot to be done if we want to get out of the vicious circle of this flawed, frequently distorted knowledge about the Holocaust, as well as the seemingly reassuring conclusions that can be drawn from this knowledge.

Nowadays, perhaps, the history of the German extermination centre, described by means of the archaeological investigations already carried out in the area of the former camp in 2000 – 2001, as well as the ones planned to be conducted in the future, will reveal at least a small particle of truth about “what it was really like there”. This type of knowledge obviously brings us closer to revealing the truth about Sobibór. The German extermination camp was a reality. Now, for most of us, Sobibór is merely an abstract idea, given some life only within our imagination. What is left then, is our thoughts, our language and the artefacts4 hidden in the ground. We have no access to THAT Sobibór, but we have the right to build a certain narration around it. From here, there is only one small step towards creating a certain image in our memory. This memory might, perhaps, serve as a safeguard against human stupidity: something so frequently displayed. May SOBIBÓR, as soon as possible, stop being a forgotten place; may it become a place which is remembered.

Archaeological excavations on the site of Sobibór are a unique chance, need and necessity in our quest for learning the truth about this place. Commenced in 2000, they have been continuing, with some breaks, even into this past year. What is more, we still have an opportunity, unlike in the other extermination camps, to conduct a fully archaeological exploration of the scene of the murder of almost 300,000 Jews from the whole of Europe.

This archaeological work is very distinctive in character. The constant confrontation with this place of remembrance and the memory of the still living survivors, the expectations of thousands of people for whom this place is a family cemetery, and the need to respect Jewish religious law - all these pose a great challenge for archaeologists. Moreover, the great precision with which the Germans tried to obliterate all trace of the camp’s existence, the post-war destruction of the very few remnants of the camp, the long-term exploitation of the area by the forest industry, easy accessibility, the passing of time, questions of land ownership and the incessant use of the railway platform - these, in turn, have contributed to the deformation and devaluation of everything that could have survived, in the form of traces hidden in the ground, from October 1943 until now.

4 Artefact - product made by hand; any object made and modified by man, discovered later as a result of archaeological research.


Any decisions to continue archaeological excavations in Sobibór naturally force us to answer many questions and to provide many explanations. The key issue is to determine the scope of knowledge about the history of this extermination camp. The question arises as to what extent this knowledge fulfils our moral duty to commemorate the camp’s victims and, from the point of view of historiography, how credible, responsible and complete this knowledge is. Many concerns come to mind: How to combine historical truth with the form of its commemoration? Where and how are the boundaries between satisfying symbolism and solid knowledge formed, and how do they disappear? How is it possible, at present, to reconcile the already existing places of remembrance with the so-radically-different research results of many historians, like those concerning the number of people murdered in Sobibór? The basic question is simple - is our knowledge about Sobibór sufficient to revitalise and extend the Sobibór Site of Remembrance? Instead, maybe we should suspend such undertakings to first, continue comprehensive interdisciplinary scientific studies which will substantially broaden our knowledge and fully exploit the present research potential of many scientific disciplines.

Archaeologists doing their research into the Sobibór camp have yet a lot to do. Lately, a serious discussion has been continuing on the question whether the mound of ashes, built in Sobibór in 1965, should be left there, or whether it should, together with the other elements of remembrance, be demolished and replaced by new forms of remembrance. Perhaps these new forms would be more appropriate to the present, practically complete, knowledge about the ‘sites’ of the mound and the monuments (as well as their surroundings). The mound, built with a sincere and respectful sense of the need to commemorate the victims, was and still is the ‘symbol’ of Sobibór. However, when it was built, it reflected (looking at this from the perspective of fifty or so years) the state of historical knowledge possessed at that time. Nowadays, this knowledge is much broader. At that time, it was meant to symbolise an undefined graveyard area. Today, we know precisely the location of the pits with the victims’ ashes. The mound ‘covers’ three out of eight so-far-pinpointed huge graves. The asphalt road leading up to the mound was also built over one of those. In all likelihood, the obelisk symbolising the gas chamber and the monument of a woman prisoner with a child in her arms (built at the same time as the mound) stand on the site of the gas chamber. This is what the planners and authors of these monuments aimed at when they undertook the task of building them. They wanted to have them built on the alleged site of the gas chamber. Many of the latest historical analyses imply that, indeed, this might be the place where the gas chamber used to be. The question arises then: if so, should this be left like that? The problem of whether or not relics of the gas chamber can be found beneath the monuments, can only be resolved by archaeologists. We should also ask ourselves the question about how important our knowledge is of the remaining parts of the former camp.


Each archaeological excavation (the years 2000, 2001, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011) has discovered new surprising facts, leading the researchers to ask further questions. At the same time, the archaeologists have, accurately, step by step, reconstructed the topography of the camp and confirmed the data acquired from other historical sources. Different accounts, testimonies, memoirs and diaries of former camp prisoners, members of the camp personnel, Ukrainian guards and witnesses from outside the camp verified and influenced the plans of further archaeological research. Now, would the road have been discovered between the site of the monuments and the museum building if it had not been for the prisoners’ accounts who remembered it from the time of their stay in the camp? It is due to them that we know it was the ‘Himmelfahrtstrasse’. What shall we do about the places which we, the Sobibór museum workers, have no ‘official access’ to? The vast majority of the post-camp area remains beyond the control of the Sobibór museum. The whole area of the former camp is subject to regulations in the so-called protection zone. This interpretation, though, has not changed the status quo of the area. On the former camp platform, timber is still loaded onto freight cars. In the area of the former Camp I and SS administration area, there are domestic premises, and a dozen or so hectares of the camp area remain under the management of the local forestry administration. Hence, we are faced with the dilemma of establishing the boundary between the respectful and responsible remembrance of the camp and the present-day possibilities of land-use. Is this pure realism, and thus should our answer be directed towards history, or, perhaps, is this a sign of our impotence and trivialisation (of the whole problem)? Hundreds of artefacts which the archaeologists have found so far, tell the history of the camp. They tell the story which makes us reflect upon the reality that the Germans committed 300,000 murders in Sobibór. Therefore, should we leave everything that is hidden in the Sobibór soil in peace?

There is still a unique chance that it is archaeology that will fulfil this, in many cases, last hope to unravel the mysteries of the Sobibór camp. Only the results of archaeological research can ensure that no future activity on the Sobibór camp premises will ever disturb the places where the remains of the people murdered in this death camp might still be. Any objects that will be found, will, even if to a limited extent, contribute to effacing the odium of human anonymity haunting this place. We can state categorically that for Sobibór, archaeology is one of the last opportunities to solve many mysteries surrounding the knowledge about it. The task is formidable, but, as the previous studies have shown, not impossible. On the one hand, we can rely on the enormous experience of archaeologists and the possibility of making use of other auxiliary scientific fields (geophysics and GPS systems). On the other, we deal with a concentration, over a limited area, of diverse, fragmentary relics of the post-camp infrastructure, and have the possibility to use comparative methods, which is limited practically to the minimum. Most importantly, ‘Sobibór archaeology’ cannot rely solely on its excavations. It has to include a thorough study of a given phenomenon. Only then will the research results help us to understand “What was it really like there?”


The results of the archaeological investigations that have already taken place, have made us aware of how insufficient our knowledge of the Sobibór camp was throughout all these many years. They confirmed our suppositions and worries that, in fact, there is a real danger of people having behaved disrespectfully, albeit fully unaware of it, towards this place. Now, we can be sure that frequent group and individual prayers for the dead will no longer be said by people standing on the victims’ graves. Only now will we be able to protect the graves from being littered, destroyed or treated as places where people come to pick mushrooms or where children come to play. It is of vital importance, then, that thanks to the results of archaeological research, visitors heading towards the mound built to commemorate the murdered, will not have to tread on human ashes.

As a careful observer of the archaeological investigations here, I was greatly impressed by the professionalism with which they were carried out. What moved me in particular was the constant care and concern the researchers showed towards each new place they investigated, for fear that they might hide human ashes beneath. The research, which frequently produced quite unpredictable results, was an attempt to find evidence of the crimes committed here. This will surely enable us to appropriately mark these places which, from the moment they were discovered onwards, have been and must be the object of special care.


Does nothing really remain of the camp in Sobibór? A short history of the camp’s liquidation

On the 14th of October 1943, an armed prisoners’ revolt broke out in the German extermination centre in Sobibór. As a result, about 40 prisoners died during the fight and in the mine fields surrounding the camp, while 275 managed to escape. Many of these people were later captured and killed by the pursuing SS forces. However, at least 61 Sobibór camp escapees survived the war. Between the 16th and 20th of October, when the situation in the camp after the revolt had been brought under control, the Germans, in order to secure, tidy up and repair the more important installations, made an inventory of all the losses and re-organised, in these new circumstances, the basic administrative functions of the camp. They also burnt the bodies of all the prisoners killed during the revolt. However, after the revolt, the camp was not immediately destroyed. Franz Suchomel testified:

[...] On my arrival in Sobibór, I didn’t notice any traces of this revolt. I only saw some trails of destruction not far from the fence right next to the rail tracks [...]1.

On 16th October, the Sobibór camp personnel most probably consisted of six Germans and several dozen Ukrainian guards. The members of the permanent staff that had stayed in the camp were Frenzel, Bauer, Wendland, Muller and Rewald. Michalsen, who had come on the 14th October, stayed there longer. Gomerksi, Bolender, Hodl, Klier, Lambert, Unverhau, Reichleitner and Wagner came back from their leave. Several members of the Treblinka camp (Suchomel, Potzinger, Kurt Franz, Munzberger, Sydow, Matthes, Adolf Gentz) were, at the end of October and the beginning of November, posted to the Sobibór camp to complete the number of personnel so that it was similar to the one before the revolt, and to support the Sobibór personnel in appropriate work organisation and in the-already-begun liquidation of the camp. The personnel members from Treblinka were sent to Sobibór in three separate groups, while, Schluch, Zierka and Juhrs came from the labour camp in Dorohucza. Approximately 25 prisoners were left alive to do labour in the camp. These were the Jews who, most probably, the District Police Commander of the Lublin area, in his report from the 16th October, referred to as “detainees”. The camp management were then kept waiting for their superiors’ orders, who were to decide on the future of this place.1 Franz Suchomel’s interrogation protocol, LKA/NW, Dez 15, Alt- Otting, 7th November 1962.


Already on October 19th, 1943, Hans Frank had pencilled-in a meeting in Cracow which was attended, among others, by Sipo and SD Commander Walter Bierkamp, Cracow Ordnungspolizei [Order Police] Commander Hans-Dietrich Grunwald, and Head of the Armaments Inspectorate Maximilian Schindler. They met to talk about the state of security in the General Government. The revolt in Sobibór had only confirmed them in their conviction that there existed a real threat to the region’s security. Making references to what had happened in Sobibór, they came to the agreement that Jewish camps posed a serious danger to the Germans. They concluded that the most urgent task was to strengthen the security police forces, as well as to take the final decision about how many Jews should be recognised as indispensable and useful as a labour force, and how many should be immediately “removed from the General Government” region. Afterwards, Hans Frank informed Heinrich Himmler about the final conclusions of that meeting. The unprecedented escape of the prisoners from the extermination centre in Sobibór, which meant the necessity to liquidate the camp, gave Himmler the pretext to commence the final stage of the extermination of Jews in the General Government lands. Despite the general discussion and disagreement on whether there was still the need to use Jews as labour force, Himmler made his final decision concerning the ultimate fate of the Jewish camps only a few days later. He passed his decision on to Cracow to the Higher SS and Police Leader of the General Government Friedrich Kruger, making him responsible for implementing the decision.

Sobibór was therefore to cease to exist and the so-called “Operation Harvest Festival” was to be the last stage of “Operation Reinhardt”2. “Operation Harvest Festival” was to be the biggest sole ethnic mass murder in history carried out in such a short time. It lasted between the 3-4th of November, 1943. On the first day, the Jews staying in Lublin, the Majdanek concentration camp and the labour camp in Trawniki were murdered; on the second - all the Jews in the labour camp in Poniatowa. As a result, more than 42,000 people were massacred. The “Operation” was the last part and the “crowning achievement” of the “final solution of the Jewish question” carried out within Germany’s “Operation Reinhardt”. SS-Obergruppenführer Odilo Globocnik (former SS and Police Leader in the Lublin District of the General Government, and the lead administrator of “Operation Reinhardt”. Later, on 17th September, 1943 he was to be transferred to Trieste in Italy and appointed Higher SS and Police Leader of the Operation Zone of the Adriatic Littoral region) was still responsible to Himmler regarding “Operation Reinhardt”. On the 4th November, 1943, he sent Heinrich Himmler a report which officially concluded “Operation Reinhardt”3.

2 3-4 listopada 1943. Erntefest, zapomniany epizod Zagłady [3-4th November 1943. Erntefest, the Forgotten Episode of the Holocaust], ed. Wojciech Lenarczyk, Dariusz Libionka, Lublin 2009, pp. 9-10.

3 Sobibor. Ein NS-Vernichtungslager im Rahmen der „Aktion Reinhard, Institute of Documentation in Israel. For Investigation Nazi War Crimes, Haifa 1998, pp. 107-108.


The bitter irony is that Christian Wirth succeeded in fulfilling his obsession. Being in charge of the “Operation Reinhardt” extermination camps, he used to say that he always tried to engage Jews themselves in the process of murdering other Jews. Therefore, a group of Jews were appointed the task of obliterating all trace of the existence of the Sobibór extermination centre. The Jews selected especially for this task were brought to Sobibór from the camp in Treblinka. On 20th October, five freight cars set off from Treblinka and headed via Siedlce, Łuków, Dęblin and Lublin, to Sobibór, carrying 200 Jews. During the liquidation of the camp, duty assignments of particular staff members were similar to those from before the revolt. The personal belongings of the Germans killed by the prisoners during the revolt were sorted, secured and made ready to be sent to those Germans’ families4. Each camp staff member had a few Jews at their disposal, who saw to the normal functioning of the camp’s kitchen, laundry, stable, barn, workshops and the allocated camp sectors. All this constituted only a temporary logistic complement to the most important task, i.e. the evacuation and liquidation of the camp.

Little is known about the first transport of the Treblinka camp Jews who were to work on the liquidation of the Sobibór camp. The Germans who came to Sobibór at the end of October and the beginning of November never mentioned this group of prisoners in their testimonies during the post-war court trials against them. However, it is implied in their testimonies referring to the second half of October that the liquidation work in the camp area had progressed substantially. Instead, when talking about that period of time, they only mentioned a small group of about 30 Jewish labourers and another group of Treblinka prisoners who had arrived in Sobibór on 4th November. The first, two-hundred-person group of prisoners from Treblinka were used for the hardest initial evacuation and demolition work in the camp. The most important tasks included: preparing and loading into freight cars, the victims’ possessions that had so far filled the sorting barracks; the evacuation of the ammunition kept in the storage huts of Camp IV; dismantling of the equipment and furnishings of the workshops; demolition of the gas chamber; dismantling the engine used for gassing the victims; tearing down and demolishing the camp barracks, storage barracks and fences; as well as obliterating all the traces in Camp III of the places where the victims’ ashes had been buried. The scope of this work was very broad and its ultimate goal was the complete liquidation of the camp infrastructure (covering more than 30 hectares) and the very careful obliteration of any traces of this extermination centre. As part of this work, a group of Wehrmacht sappers disarmed the mines buried in the area surrounding the camp.

In their pursuit of covering up all trace of the camp and camouflaging all that had been happening there, the Germans went so far as to renovate the buildings of the Forest District of Sobibór and the forester’s lodge which they had previously 4 Franz Suchomel’s interrogation protocol, ZStL-251/59-6-1129f.;-8-1613f, Altotting, 24th January

1962.


taken over and adapted to the camp infrastructure during its construction. Before leaving the camp, the Germans planned to (according to Juhrs’s testimony) bequeath the buildings to some “Polish forestry commission”. Supposedly, from the very beginning, the camp management planned the maximally quick exploitation of the prisoners, using them to do as many jobs as possible in the shortest possible time and, finally, liquidating the whole group. The Jews therefore, became a heavy burden to the liquidated camp (even if taking into account the problem of their sustenance and security). The Germans also presumed the necessity for using, for the last time, the crematorium in Camp III to burn the large number of dead bodies because they wanted, in exactly the same place as before, to hide the ashes of the killed and burnt prisoners. The next group of prisoners from Treblinka very carefully obliterated the traces in this part of the camp, which meant filling in the ash pits, levelling the ground and planting trees for camouflage.

On 4th November, probably 75 Jews were brought to Sobibór by transport number 6711940. They arrived early in the morning and lined up on the roll-call yard of the former Camp I. Kapo Karl Blau was in charge. He reported to Gustav Wagner, giving him the exact number of the newly arrived prisoners, and declared their readiness to work. The prisoners, on Wagner’s or Frenzel’s order, were put into groups and assigned particular tasks. The other staff members took charge of them5. Franz Suchomel took charge of the tailors and shoemakers. Most probably this group was assigned the task of putting in order the items from the sorting barracks and preparing these for dispatch to the Third Reich. However, the vast majority of the prisoners were engaged in the demolition work and obliteration of any traces of the camp’s existence, especially Camp III. This demolition progressed at a very fast pace. The Jews had to work really hard, yet they received very modest portions of food. At the beginning of November, there was little left of the camp. Robert Juhrs’s account implies (Juhrs arrived in Sobibór, together with Zierke on the 5th of November, from the labour camp in Dorohucza) that at that time, it was possible to move about the camp without encountering any obstacles. Camps III and IV were completely demolished. Everything was razed to the ground. All the internal fences and the “Heavenly Way” were dismantled. Most of the buildings had also already been torn down. Franz Suchomel and Arthur Matthes, the SS staff in charge of the liquidation of the camp, describe “the last days” of this place as follows:

Franz Suchomel: “[...] one morning, at 6 o’clock in the second half of November, Gustav Wagner informed the other staff members that by the end of the day, he was to notify Lublin that the last Jews from the camp had been liquidated. He suggested forcing the Jews to do very hard labour to make them feel utterly exhausted and, in this way, to minimize any potential resistance. The liquidation of the prisoners was carried out in a few stages. On that day, the Jews were liquidated in groups - group after group. The Jewish labourers engaged in the demolition of the camp were taken 5 Jules Schelvis, op. cit., p. 240.


for execution in the morning. The shots rang out at regular intervals. Since I could hardly hear them, I think a gun was used. The place of execution was on the site of the former shooting range in the forest outside Camp III. To describe the location of the shooting range more precisely, I can say that it was situated south-west of Camp III. The news spread the next morning that that was the place which had been chosen for executions. The bodies of the Jews from Treblinka lay on wooden structures 15 metres in length by 2 metres in height. They were made from dry branches and “flammable” wood [...]”6.

Artur Matthes: “[...] a few days after my arrival in Sobibór, about a hundred Jewish labourers were sent here from Treblinka. They worked on demolishing the buildings and tidying up the area of the camp. They didn’t work for me, though. In November or December of that year, when I was still staying in the camp, those hundred Jews were shot. One morning, at about seven, they were taken to Camp III - not far from the place where I worked. They had clothes on. They were lined up in a few rows. I didn’t see who was in charge of the group. A few staff members and a few Ukrainian volunteers escorted them. I didn’t get the order to take part in the execution, but from the place where I was working, I could hear the shots of the execution squad coming from Camp III. I think these were not salvos, but individual shots. On the same day, during our meal, my colleagues told me that those hundred Jews had been shot in the morning. The bodies were then burnt in Camp III. I think it was done in the open air [...]”7.

Felix Górny: [...] during those conversations, I learnt that a revolt had broken out in the Jewish tailor’s workshop of the camp. An SS member of the guard staff had ordered them to sew him a new uniform. During the second fitting, the Jewish tailors killed him. Another SS staff member, who wanted to help the killed German, was also killed. Next, the Jews from the tailor’s workshop got in touch with the Jews from the armoury, armed themselves and opened fire on the remaining SS staff members who were keeping guard of the camp. I then heard that all the Jews who had been unsuccessful in the revolt, were shot by the SS immediately after the revolt. The SS members keeping guard of the camp, who, during the revolt had been away from the camp, carried out the execution. Finally, the bodies of the killed prisoners were thrown into one place in the Vorlager, not far from the platform, by the rail tracks, poured-over with petrol and burnt. I learnt about the execution of the Jews and the incineration of their bodies in Vorlager, about five or six weeks after the revolt, during my stay in the Sobibór camp. I had to collect from there some machines and carry them by truck (a wood-gas powered “Holzgaser”) to the municipal headquarters in Chełm. They were shoemaker’s and sewing machines.I asked the SS soldiers

6 Franz Suchomel’s interrogation protocol, LKA/NW (Dez 15), ZStL-251/59-6-1129f, 8-1613f, Altotting, 24th January 1962.

7 Arthur Matthes’s interrogation protocol, Cologne, 4th July 1962 [accessibility: 2nd December 2011], www.holocaustresearchproject.org.


stationed in Sobibór to tell me everything about the outbreak of the uprising. I was given all the information voluntarily. I was also told that the revolt had begun in the tailor’s workshop. It was mentioned that the Jews who had survived the revolt were shot in the camp immediately after it had ended. I was shown the place where their bodies had been burnt. I saw that place with my own eyes. The interrogation officers have shown me the situational plan of the Jewish extermination camp in Sobibór. I can’t remember exactly having been in the Vorlager at that time. The incineration site, where the bodies had been burnt, was located in the part of the Vorlager which was opposite the rail tracks, in the open yard. During my stay in the camp in Sobibór, I did not see the remaining parts of the camp complex, which in the situational plan, were marked as Lager I, Lager II, Lager III and Lager IV. I spent about two hours in the Sobibór camp. For obvious reasons, I didn’t feel good there. I was glad when I could leave that place of terror. The SS soldiers told me then that the camp was being liquidated. They said that there were just a few people there, who were doing some demolition and cleaning work. I was accompanied by a few members of the staff responsible to the main battalion staff. Unfortunately, I don’t remember their names [...]8.

Robert Juhrs testified that the last prisoners participating in the liquidation of the camp had been shot at the beginning of December 1943. The murder took place in the area of the former Camp III, or somewhere near the wooded area of the camp. Wagner and Frenzel supervised the execution. Juhrs claimed that the Ukrainian guards had carried out the shooting, the most active being Aleks Kaiset. Bauer, Podessa, Hodl, Klier, Lambert and Unverhau also took part. In addition, the rest of the camp staff were present. However, it is Wagner and Frenzel who came to the fore during the killing. Part of the camp staff cordoned off the place of execution. The Jews were killed by a shot in the back of their heads. There were no incidents during the execution; the Jews were obedient and did not put up any resistance. A few days after this execution, the liquidation of the last camp barracks still continued9. In mid-December 1943, all the work connected with the liquidation of the German extermination centre in Sobibór was completed. What was left untouched was the renovated former forest district’s building used in the camp as the commandant’s office, as well as a few barracks in the Vorlager where the Ukrainian guards lived.

Local residents, who had previously witnessed the construction of the camp and its functioning, now had a possibility to watch the liquidation and evacuation of the SS-Sonderkommando centre in Sobibór:

Jan Krzowski: “[...] in the late Autumn of 1943, after the revolt in the camp, there arrived two or three wagons with Jews who, under the management of the

8 Feliks Górny’s interrogation protocol, reference symbol of files LKA /NW – 15th December, Dortmund, 6th September 1962.

9 Robert Juhrs’s interrogation protocol, LKA/NW, Dez 15, Frankfurt, 23rd May 1962.


Germans and “Watchmen”, liquidated the camp. They dismantled the buildings and took them away. The camp fence was preserved, but the gas chambers were blown up, and the rubble driven away. The camp area was ploughed and harrowed, and a coniferous forest was planted. After the liquidation of the camp was completed, the above-mentioned Jewish group was shot dead by the Germans and “Watchmen”, and their bodies thrown into a burning fire. Where the three wagons with Jews, which I mentioned before, came from, I don’t know. When the Germans and “Watchmen” liquidated the Jews, they left Sobibór, but I don’t know where [...]”10.

Franciszek Parkoła “[...] a short time later, the Germans from the camp started to load unto the wagons, some scrap brick and cement from the walls, and sent them, it seems to me, as far as to Berlin. The SS men and “askaris” went away, but some time later, came a group of Ukrainians who were led by two SS Germans, and who kept guard of this area. These were replaced by a group of “swashbucklers” [Baundiest forced labourers], but I don’t know what they were doing there, apart from looking for gold. [...]”11.

Irena Sujko: “[...] when the transports of prisoners stopped coming, the buildings in the area of the camp were dismantled, the ground was ploughed and the whole area was planted with pine tree saplings. The fence surrounding the camp was also dismantled. The camp staff - both German and former prisoners of war, left the extermination camp in Sobibór, which I remember well, at the end of December 1943. I remember the date precisely because a few days after the staff had left, I also left Sobibór for Biała Podlaska [...]”12.

Czesław Sójka: “[...] soon after the outbreak of the revolt, perhaps about a month later, the Germans set about liquidating the camp. First, it was that transports were coming more and more seldom until they had ceased to arrive. Next, after murdering all the prisoners working in the workshops, they destroyed all the camp equipment”13.

Jan Piwoński: “[...] the Jews engaged in the liquidation of the camp had to plant trees in the area which they had previously levelled. I also know that the Jews had to fill-in and cover the holes left in the ground after the blowing up of the concrete buildings inside the camp. I don’t know what happened to the Jews who had liquidated the camp, but I know that no one had ever seen any of them leave

10 Jan Krzowski, protocol of the interrogation of the witness, court case No. DSD – 058/67, Włodawa, 15th January 1968.

11 Franciszek Parkoła, protocol of the interrogation of the witness, (signature of the court case file unavailable), Lublin, 5th May 1967.

12 Irena Sujko, protocol of the interrogation of the witness (the number of the court case unavailable), Lublin, 1st February 1968.

13 Czesław Sójka’s interrogation protocol, trial court case No. Ko. Kpp. 91/67, Biała Podlaska, 8th July 1967.


the camp afterwards. I heard that all of them had been killed. In late Autumn, some time at the end of October or at the beginning of November 1943, the Germans who were in the camp, left Sobibór. I know that the Germans had sent clothes away from the camp because I myself had seen them being loaded unto wagons and sent away from the camp area. I also know that they sent away chests full of different things. The chests were 1 metre long and very heavy. I know that they were heavy because I lifted them myself. From the labels attached to the chests I learnt that they were bound for Berlin. A group of Ukrainians took the chests to the goods car, and then a German officer armed with a machine gun got on that car. The Ukrainians told me that the chests contained gold coins, not gold and coins, but gold coins. The Wlasow soldiers told me that inside, there probably was valuable jewellery and precious stones [...]”14.

Jan Piwoński: [...] soon afterwards all the camp staff left Sobibór. They were replaced by citizens of the Soviet Republic collaborating with the Germans, probably Armenians, they were called “Armiashkas”. They kept guard, under the management of the Germans, of the area of the camp so that no one entered [...]”15.

Franciszek Parkoła [...] I first found myself inside the area of the camp after the prisoners’ revolt, and before the Germans’ escape. I went there with one of the Germans from a building company building a road nearby, who called me to go with him there. I saw how the German, whose name I don’t remember now, marked off with a spade an area of land about 15 square metres in size. Digging the ground one spade deep, he took out a dozen or so gold objects such as rings, wedding rings, five and ten rouble coins, etc., naturally after digging over a particular area which he called “das ist meine”. In this way he made me believe what I hadn’t wanted to believe before [...]16.

The fact that, during the camp liquidation, some of its buildings remained untouched and that the Germans carried on with guarding the post-camp area, implies that even then, during the liquidation process, the camp management knew what purpose the place was meant to serve later. Already, as of January 1944, the Construction Service (Baudienst) from Chełm took control over the place. This so-called “Construction Service” was formed under the directive issued on 1st December, 1944, by General Governor Hans Frank. Baudienst labourers were the men between 18-60 years of age recruited from the area of the General Government, especially those who were unemployed or had no permanent job, as well as those who had volunteered through the job centre. With time, the SS authorities started to group the labourers in special camps. This was induced by the fact that most young 14 Jan Piwoński’s interrogation protocol, ZStL-643/71-4-445/446, Lublin, 29th April 1975.15 Jan Piwoński, protocol of the interrogation of the witness , signature of the court case Ko. 11/66,

Włodawa, 26th February 1966.16 Franciszek Parkoła, protocol of the interrogation of the witness, (reference symbol of files

unavailable), Lublin, 5th May 1967.


people who were supposed to be enlisted into the Badienst, massively evaded this poorly paid and physically exhausting work. Therefore, putting Badienst labourers in guarded camps became common practice in the years 1942-43. Jews, since they fell under the category of forced labourers, were not recruited. Antoni Raczyński, in his letter from 3rd December, 1966, to the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Lublin, describes what happened in the area of the former German extermination centre in Sobibór, just after a dozen or so days after its complete liquidation:

“[...] between January and April 1944, I was in the area of the liquidated Sobibór camp together with several dozen colleagues, born in 1925, as a group of forced “Baundist” labourers (the so-called “swashbucklers”) sent here from the main Baudinst camp in Chełm Lubelski. We were accommodated in three or four barracks remaining near the railway platform and the Kolonia Sobibór railway station. The barracks used to be occupied by the camp guards. Apart from those barracks, there was also a large barn-storage hut, which we had no access to, our commandant’s house - half-German half-Czech (I don’t remember his name), and one more barrack occupied by the Ukrainian guards who served with the German armed forces. Every day we were made to dig trenches and defensive embankments by the Bug River not far from the village of Sobibór. We were forbidden to move about the area of the camp. As a matter of fact, we usually came back from work when it was already dark.Only later, at the beginning of Spring, when the days are longer, did we have an opportunity to look at the post-camp yard. The whole area was levelled and planted with coniferous tree saplings. Some of the saplings were quite big and I remember that we wondered then that, perhaps, these were planted because the previous ones had withered. As the snow thawed, first someone came across a five-rouble coin near our barracks. After that, we always tried to come back from the trenches, some 3 km away, as early as possible and some of us dug out more and more various objects. Sometimes they were very precious things, like gold watches, gold coins, roubles, dollars, Austrian schillings, silver coins - Polish, Czech, Austrian, Hungarian, German, French (I’m mentioning only those I remember and saw myself). Also, many wedding rings, earrings and rings were found. When the commandant learnt about it, we were forbidden to carry on with our search. But when bribed by one of our vorarbeiters (these were Poles, senior in rank, who had volunteered for Baudinst and were now our group-leaders) with 25 Austrian schillings, he turned a blind eye to this, so we resumed our search but a bit farther away from our barracks. I remember that we found trails of barracks similar to ours in size. In the place where the foundations - the so-called beams had been laid, you could find many different treasures. Then we found some rubbish tips where things were burnt such as clothes, suitcases, children’s clothes, toys. Among these, were place settings, frequently silver ones. On other occasions, we found coins, jewellery, earrings, etc. One of my colleagues found, e.g. in one of the posts, 33 five-rouble coins, another one – reportedly, 15 one-hundred dollar banknotes, yet others wouldn’t admit to having


found anything. At the end of March, we were completely forbidden to continue with our search, and our bosses threatened us by saying that the watchmen-Ukrainians would shoot at us if we tried to walk around there. But I know that they started to search themselves. I know that one of them found in the filled-in sewage pits, a small leather bag with 1 kilo of various pieces of jewellery with precious stones. They later drank away their way through all those things in the Sobibór railway station buffet run by a Polish woman, and in local villages where they had their Ukrainian girlfriends. After the liberation, these barracks became a transit camp for the Ukrainians repatriated to the USSR, who allegedly also found many treasures. Later, too, there were many amateurs and treasure hunters so that the state forest authorities had to prevent the saplings from being completely destroyed. I think that even now it would be possible to find a lot of evidence in the form of coins, place settings, etc., on the basis of which it would be possible to determine the nationality of the people murdered there. I myself found a wedding ring and an earring, which I exchanged for money in Włodawa (I exchanged them for food because the Germans gave us such poor provisions that no one could have survived). I’m still in possession of silver Czech, French and Polish coins [...]’17.

In July 1944, the area, which had former been the extermination centre, was taken control over by the Red Army and the Polish People’s Army units. As of 1945, the new Polish authorities used the barracks left by the Germans, as well as the railway platform, as a railway station in order to gather in one place the Ukrainians meant for relocation. In 1945-1947, the Ukrainians from the eastern part of the Lublin District were relocated to Ukraine or to the western parts of Poland. The Ukrainians, who were waiting for their trains (sometimes even for more than a week) needed wood to light fires. Thus, they dismantled the remaining camp barracks, contributing in this way to the task of obliterating the last traces of the German extermination centre in Sobibór18. Most probably, local residents finally completed the task of destroying all that remained of the camp, including the digging up of the ground to find the expected “valuable things the Jews left”.

[...] after the war the news spread.... they’re digging up gold in Sobibór. I was fifteen and there are three of us who set off there. There was so much talk that they were digging for gold there. So we get there and we find out that in the place where this office is, the ground was dug the most. South of this building and in the direction of the road the ground was torn up. We went there a hundred times, maybe. There were about a hundred people there. They also had sieves (gesticulating, Doliński shows the size of those sieves - about 1,5 metres by 1,5 metres) supported the way it is done on building sites. They throw earth on these sieves. The sand went through

17 Antoni Raczyński, Letter to the Regional Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Lublin, Trawniki, 3rd December 1966.

18 Sobibór, compiled by Ewa Hołodkowa, Krakowianka - the Centre for Polish Language and Culture in Ukraine [accessibility: 2nd December 2011], www.krakowianka.pl.


and any gold things remained on the sieve. Not far from where the museum building now is, a little to the north, there was a hole, as big as this garden house we are sitting in; it was two metres deep. In the hole a guy is sitting. He was sitting on a sort of pail. He’s got a shovel, spoon and a sack. He’s using the spoon to scrub the walls, the earth falls to the bottom and he can see what is there. He’s scrubbing and scrubbing with this spoon. I saw a coin fall down but it wasn’t gold. He dug through to a pot. He took the pot, knocked on the bottom. It was a copper pot. He knew how much it was worth and put it into his sack. Now he’s scrubbing again. Whenever he scrubbed off quite a big heap, he threw the earth up to the top with his shovel. He found children’s prams, thermos flasks. Next to this hole was a similar one, full of small scissors, knives, but they were only looking for gold. My colleagues started to dig and dug out a Bible - a sort of Jewish prayer book. It was a thick book and its pages were rotten. He started to open it, I mean this colleague of mine, and a signet ring fell out of it. It was made of gold and it was shaped like a canoe. They brought it to Zbereż and showed it to our neighbour. He looked at it carefully and said that he would sell us a litre of moonshine in return. We gave it to that neighbour. Everything on that yard was earthed up - anything, be it a stone, a branch or a stump. Perhaps this was to show that something was hidden there. Everything was grubbed up. All this was happening after the liberation. Later, the forest guard kept watch of the place. I remember a military man from Włodawa who went there at night with his metal detector. But some time later, a Gierung from this forest guard lay in wait for him. He caught this military man who, probably, got a year and a half for that [...]19.

Even as late as 2010, by sheer coincidence, some remains of, most probably, the last barracks occupied by the camp guards (?), were found. One of the Sobibór railway workers had used these to clad his house in the village of Żłobek. The heirs to the house noticed during its extensive renovation, some “strange” elements of its boarding. Knowing the connections of the former house owner with the post-war history of the camp area (most probably, the person “looked after” this part of the forest and provided visitors with information - during the camp’s existence the man had worked in the Sobibór railway station), they decided to notify employees of the museum about this fact. In this way, pieces of the cladding of the camp barracks were found.

19 From the interview conducted by Marek Bem with Jan Doliński (born on 8th February 1929 in Zbereże not far from Sobibór) in Zbereże on 30th April 2011.


Photo 1. Construction elements of the barracks or fence coming from the camp in Sobibór. Found in 2010, in the village of Żłobek

Photo 2. Construction elements of the walls of the camp barracks in Sobibór. Found in 2010, in the village of Żłobek


The first inquiries, investigations and scientific research and the topography of the camp

The first data concerning the extermination centre in Sobibór began to be collected once the Lubelszczyzna province was liberated in 1944. This initiative was meant, above all, to gather as much information as possible about the crimes committed in Sobibór and to calculate the number of victims. Two institutions undertook the task of collecting this data. The first was the Historical Commission at the Central Jewish Committee in Poland, which gathered survivors’ accounts and attempted to find all the documents (direct and indirect) connected with the camp’s activities. The second was the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, which conducted, among other issues, the official investigation into the crimes committed in Sobibór.

On the 28th of September, 1945, the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland informed the prosecutor of the Regional Court in Lublin, that the Commission had been notified that in Włodawa province, next to the Sobibór railway station, the Germans had founded a “Death Camp”, where, during 1942-1944, numerous transports were sent for extermination, not only from Poland, but also from France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Italy. Following this, they turned to the prosecutor of the Regional Court in Lublin to request that they launch an appropriate investigation. They also wanted the prosecutor to issue a ruling on securing the traces of the crimes committed, and to commence any court proceedings if the investigation results implied the necessity to do so. The Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland also informed the prosecutor that they knew the names of four witnesses – the former camp prisoners, Zelda Metz, Poderchlebnik1 Salomon, Hanel Salomea and Cukierman Hersz. Moreover, they stated that they had also been informed where these people were2. With this information at hand, the Prosecutor of the Regional Court in Lublin, Kazimierz Schnierstein, and the Examining Magistrate of the Regional Court, Segiusz Urban, dealt with this matter as soon as they could.

The official investigation into the Sobibór crimes commenced on the 4th of October, 1945, under the direction of the delegated Examining Magistrate of the 1 Actually, the person’s name was Salomon Podchlebnik.2 Letter from The Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, to the Prosecutor

of the Regional Court in Lublin, from 28th September, 1945.


Regional Court, Segiusz Urban. When Judge Sergiusz Urban went to the scene of the crime and stayed there between 11-12th October 1945, the following steps were taken: an inspection was carried out of the area of the former camp, a situational plan was drawn up and photographs of the place were taken. Additionally, an inquiry was made as to the people who could provide any explanation or data concerning the layout of the camp, the names of the German criminals who had “worked” there, the number of transports and the number of people brought to the camp, the means of mass- extermination used and the ways in which the Germans obliterated all trace of their crimes. Between 13 and 18th October, nine witnesses were heard (including two former camp prisoners), who came from Włodawa, Sobibór and other places in the vicinity. Between the 29th of October and the 7th of November, further investigation was undertaken in Chełm. At this time, witnesses were heard, including one former camp prisoner. What is more, samples of ashes and bones from the camp area were taken to confirm, through expertise, whether they were human. Hence, these samples were sent on 12th November to Cracow’s Institute of Court Expertise, requesting the Institute to determine whether they were the remains of incinerated corpses. During these proceedings, it turned out that a great number of witnesses, whose testimonies could have been of vital importance for this case, had moved about after the war. Fortunately, the investigators managed to find and hear some of them.

“[...] My investigation into the Death Camp in Sobibór has encountered various difficulties; e.g. the witnesses proposed by Citizen Judge in his motion from 28th September to the Prosecutor of the Regional Court in Lublin i.e. 1/ Metz Zelda and 2/ Hersz Cukierman do not dwell at the addresses provided (the house at 42 Koszykowa Street in Warsaw has been completely destroyed). Regarding 3/Poderlebnik Salomon and 4/Hanel Szalce - only the names of the cities (Koło and Cracow) they live in were provided, which, in view of the lack of their personal data, makes it more difficult for the police to find them. Since, supposedly, some mistakes in the witnesses’ addresses occurred while Citizen Judge’s motion was being typed (e.g. the name “Poderlebnik” was typed, whereas from what I have established, it should be “Podchlebnik”), I kindly ask that you check in the files or notes if and what the precise addresses of these four witnesses are, and to let me know as soon as possible [...]”3.

Within this investigation, all possible information about Sobibór was gathered and analysed; survivors’ accounts were collected, outside witnesses were heard, the area of the former camp was examined4.

3 Letter of the Judge of the Regional Court, District III in Lublin, to the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, to Judge Józef Skorzyński, Lublin, 21st October, 1945.

4 Report of the Prosecutor of the Regional Court in Lublin, A. Schnierstein, from 23rd November 1945, to the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland and the Appellate Investigative Judge, Józef Skorzyński.


One of the first activities undertaken by the County Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Chełm was to secure in photographer’s shops in Chełm and in Rejowiec, more than 700 German photographs (plates and prints), including 6 photos taken of the Sobibór camp staff members5. Members of the Jewish Committee, who were heard as witnesses, recognised seven murderers in the photos presented to them6. These materials were, in 1945, handed over to the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in the Voivod’s Office of Lubelskie, in Lublin7.

M. Rozengal, the delegate/correspondent of the Commission for Investigation of German Crimes (Wola Uhruska), in a report for the District Committee for Investigation of German Crimes in Włodawa, dating from 22nd September, 1945, states the following:

[...] In reference to the letter of the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes of Lublin Voivodeship from the 3rd August, 1945, I am providing you with the following data gathered within the Municipality of Włodawa, in Wola Uhruska. The Sobibór camp occupied a large area of about 100 Polish morgens8. It was surrounded by three layers of barbed wire, up to 3 metres high. Additionally, running along the side of the railway line and behind other houses, was a high fence made from wood and wooden planks so that no one from the outside could see what was happening inside. The camp was divided into three parts, with 17 barracks in the first, 8 barracks in the second, and 4 buildings in the third part, which was the execution area. The barracks were made from wood and wooden planks. A few buildings were taken over from the Forest District of Sobibór. Other buildings were made from cement and brick [...]. The camp in Sobibór, mainly the execution equipment and the crematorium, had been dismantled by the Germans by the Autumn of 1943 and transported to another camp, as I mentioned in point 2. Some buildings (especially those which served as the place of execution) were destroyed by the Germans. Some other barracks, the Germans burnt down or dismantled. The barracks in the first part of the camp (17 buildings) were, during the winter of 1944/45, dismantled by the Ukrainians who were to be shipped away beyond the Bug River (to be resettled to the USSR). These were partly burnt down while the Ukrainians were trying to warm themselves up or were cooking food while waiting for their railway transport. Other parts were taken on board the train cars. Only three buildings were left (in possession of the Forest District), but in a damaged

5 Alina Gałan, The District Committee for Investigation of German Crimes in Chełm (1945), “Rocznik Chełmski” [Chełmian Yearbook], 2010, vol.14, 20 pp. 252-257.

6 Ibidem, (A IPN O/Lublin, OKBZN team, sig. IPN Lu 1/15/2, p.13).7 Ibidem, (A IPN O/Lublin, OKBZN team, sig. IPN Lu 1/15/2, p.40).8 Morgen - a historical unit of measurement of land used in agriculture. At first, it referred to the

amount of land one man could plough or reap behind a horse during one working day (literally: “from morning to afternoon”). Its measurement, depending on the quality of the soil, horse and cart, and tools, varied between 0,33 - 1,07 hectare. 1 new Polish morgen = 0,5598 hectare.


state. The barbed wire fence was preserved, partly damaged. The state of the camp is destroyed, full of rubble and pits [...]9.

The Commission used the information about the military action in the Municipality of Wola Uhruska, gathered and elaborated upon by the Municipality Office in Wola Uhruska, as back-up material for its investigation work.

Photo 3. Location of the gas chamber in the Sobibór camp as pointed out by witness Jan Piwoński

[...] The Sobibór place of mass murder of hundreds of thousands of members of the Jewish nation, as well as Polish, Czech, Soviet and other nations, was definitely liquidated in the late Autumn of 1943. The machines and pots were driven away by

9 M. Rozengal’s - the delegate/correspondent of the Commission for Investigation of German Crimes (Wola Uhruska) - report for the District Committee for Investigation of German Crimes in Włodawa, from 22nd September, 1945. Włodawa Magistrate’s Court delegated Magistrate’s Judge A. Sobiesiak to hear, on 20th November 1945, the village head of Municipality Sobibór, Włodawa District, Jan Skulski, age: 52, place of stay: the village of Kosyń.


the German barbarians in an unknown direction. The yard where this place had been situated was cleared of all the buildings and then ploughed and harrowed. Today, in the same place grows a small forest planted by the Germans especially to cover up all trace of their barbarities [...]10.

Jan Piwoński, a railway worker from the Sobibór railway station and living in the neighbouring village of Żłobek, was one of the few witnesses convinced that they were able to pinpoint the location of the gas chamber:

“[...] the gas chambers were over there, 50 metres behind the obelisk. In 1944, a little farther on, there were a few trees, but here, the whole area was a uniform field. Ah now... here, in 1944, at first sight, there was no doubt as to what had happened here because there were small trees, 3-4 years old; it was just a young forest. It was impossible not to guess that the trees were there to hide the concentration camp. The Germans had planted these trees to camouflage this. The Germans decided to liquidate the camp, most probably at the beginning of the Winter of 1943 [...]”11.

The Ministry of Justice planned for as early as at the end of October 1945, a press conference about the results of the investigation into “annihilation camps” founded by the German occupant on the territory of Poland.

The Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland asked the Prosecutor of the Regional Court in Lublin to send them, by the 26th of October, 1945, a report on the investigation materials connected with the camp located “by the Sobibór railway station”. The report was to include relevant data covering the following: the inspection of the scene of the crime, exhibits, witnesses’ testimonies about the layout of the camp, the composition of prisoners in terms of their nationality and citizenship, the prisoners’ everyday routine, their treatment, the practised forms of extermination, the approximate number of victims, the occupant’s attempts to obliterate the traces of the committed crimes, and the duration of the camp’s existence12.

On the 23rd of November, 1945, Prosecutor A. Schnierstein described the results of the investigation into the Sobibór death camp as follows (excerpts):

“[...] The Germans closed the Sobibór camp soon after the revolt, i.e. on 14th October 1943. It was liquidated in the following way:

The gas chamber was blown up in the place in which it was located. The court examination only revealed the remains of its rubble, which made it impossible to precisely determine its surface area and measurements. The barracks were burnt 10 County Office in Wola Uhruska, Sobibór, Włodawa District. The survey on the military action and

the German occupation.11 Transcript of the interview with Jan Piwoński Shoah that was carried out by Claude Lazmann, for

the film Shoah.12 Letter of the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, to the prosecutor

of the Regional Court in Lublin, Kazimierz Schnierstein, Cracow, 16th November, 1945.


down or dismantled and taken way. The ashes and the remains of human bones of the incinerated bodies were scattered in shallow extensive pits and covered by sand. In their place, a pine tree forest was planted - today, two-year-old pine trees grow there. The watch tower and other buildings were also demolished. On the site, there only remained the empty shells of the dwelling houses (formerly occupied by the SS men and guards) as local inhabitants had taken away the windows, doors and the remains of the furnishings. The investigation requires that the following activities be performed: that hearings be undertaken with a number of witnesses in different places in the country. Therefore, detailed requisitions have been sent, some of which are slowly coming back after examination. Attempts have been made to obtain the original plans of the camp (for which purpose appropriate correspondence has been sent)[...]”13.

In October 1946, the investigation into the former extermination camp in Sobibór was concluded.

Photo 4. Situational plan of the land taken over by the Nazis to found the extermination camp in Sobibór, Włodawa Province, between the years 1940-194514.

Copy of the plan elaborated upon and described by Krzysztof Skwirowski (the Museum of the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District)

13 Report of the Prosecutor of the Regional Court in Lublin, A. Schniersteina, from 23rd November, 1945 (No. I Dz.1438/45), to the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, Cracow, Straszewskiego 41, to the Appellate Investigative Judge, Józef Skorzyński in Radom, ul. Żeromskiego 63 m. 1.

14 Nachman Blumental, Dokumenty i materiały z czasów okupacji niemieckiej w Polsce, [Documents and Materials from the Times of the German Occupation in Poland] vol. I, Camps, Chapter V – Sobibór, Łódź,1946, pp. 197 – 214.


(1). Situational plan of the area taken over by the SS in order to found the death camp in Sobibór, Włodawa Province, 1940-45. (2). Map scale 1:2000 (38,50 hectares - camp, 20,30 hectares - caretaker’s lodges). 3. Young forest planted over the ashes, 4. Forest growing over the former gas chambers, 5. Labour camp, 6. Buildings destroyed and removed, 7. Buildings destroyed, 8. Gate, 9. Railway platform (“ramp”), 10. Shed, 11. Pit filled with chloride (20 x 15 metres), 12. Chapel, 13. Path made from cinder and gravel, 14. Gate, 15. (?), 16. (?), 17. Sobibór railway Station.

Photo 5. Situational plan of the land taken over by the Nazis to found the extermination camp in Sobibór, Włodawa Province, between the years 1940-1945.

Marked are the places of the present forms of remembrance: the walking paths, the monuments and the mound15

Zbigniew Łukasiewicz’s report printed in 1947, in the “Bulletin of the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland” summed up the investigation carried out by the Commission. Łukaszewicz’s article contains a short description of how the camp functioned, and the calculation of the number of victims of the German extermination centre in Sobibór. He based his report on the accounts of Jewish camp survivors, Polish railway workers employed during the German occupation to operate the Chełm-Włodawa railway line, as well as the testimonies

15 Isaac Gilead, Yoram Haimi, Wojciech Mazurek, Excavating Nazi Extermination Centres [accessibility: 21st January 2012], www.presentpasts.info/article/view/pp.12/2 .


of other outside witnesses16. The year before, Nachman Blumental made use of the Commission’s investigation in his article about Sobibór:

[...] not everywhere were they so successful. The unexpected appearance of Red Army troops frequently caught the Germans “red-handed”. In this way, the crematoria furnaces in Majdanek and Oświęcim were spared. It is worse in the case of the death camps in Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka because the Germans had liquidated them already in the second half of 1943. The places themselves were liberated as late as the second half of 1944. The closure of these camps was caused partly by the historic shifting of the borderline of the military action from the east to the west, and partly as a result of the events the German authorities had not expected (the prisoners’ revolts in the Treblinka and Sobibór death camps). Therefore, on the sites of these former camps there are no documents confirming their existence, and the former institutions once used to kill people are now non-existent, either. Apparently, there are no visible traces left, but it is enough to dig down a bit into the earth to find the remains of not-completely-burnt human bones. All over the place are the scattered shreds of people’s clothing, pages from prayer books written in different European languages, things of everyday use, letters, photographs, etc, all these being what has remained of the people brought here to be “finished off”. The lack of any official documents at the scene of the crime itself makes the task of any historian more difficult. It is practically impossible to determine - at least for the time being - the precise date of the construction of these camps, as well as the number of people who found themselves there, etc. It is likely, though, that with time, these documents will be found in the archives of the central German authorities, and this will make it possible to solve the above-mentioned issues. At present, we have to limit ourselves to the fame surrounding these camps and to the testimonies of the people who, for longer or shorter times, stayed in these camps. Regrettably, those who have survived till this very day are very scarce now. No more than thirty people survived the Treblinka death camp, several dozen - the Sobibór camp, and, from what we know, even fewer prisoners survived Bełżec [...]17.

A lengthy excerpt of Zbigniew Łukasiewicz’s study refers to the state of the post-camp area of the extermination camp.

Zbigniew Łukasiewicz: [...] this statement, as well as the information about the camp presented above, are based on the results of the court investigation within which a substantial brief of evidence has been gathered in the form of some Jewish (former camp prisoners) testimonies, the testimonies of many Poles, mostly railroad 16 Zbigniew Łukaszewicz, Obóz zagłady w Sobiborze, [The Extermination Camp in Sobibór],

“Bulletin of Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, 1947”, vol. 3, III, pp. 49-58.

17 Nachman Blumental, Dokumenty i materiały z czasów okupacji niemieckiej w Polsce, [Documents and Materials from the Times of the German Occupation in Poland] vol. I, Camps, Chapter V – Sobibór, Łódź,1946, pp. 197 – 214.


workers, as well as the results of a professional evaluation and the inspection of the scene of the crime. The camp was situated in Włodawa Province in Lublin Voivevodship, right next to the Sobibór railway station on the Chełm-Włodawa-Brześć [Brest] route. From the north, south and east, the camp was surrounded by a thin pine forest, which also partly grows in the northern and western ends of the camp. Along the western border of the camp runs the track of the above-mentioned railway route. The Sobibór railway station is also located here, from which, starts a small siding running into the area of the camp. The measurements taken during the court examination showed that the camp had been 58 hectares in size. At present, none of the devices used directly to kill the victims in the camp have remained, whereas a few houses (damaged to a great extent), which served as dwelling houses for the camp personnel have been preserved. In the middle part of the camp, probably in the places meant to hide the ashes, there is a young two-year-old pine forest which occupies about 1200 square metres. Trial diggings have proved that under the layer of sand, there is a one-and-a-half-metre deep layer of ashes and the remains of human bones mixed with sand. Not far from the eastern border of the camp, there was found a pit, 20 x 15 metres, which had formerly contained chloride. One can come across human bones over the whole area of the camp. The results of the expert evaluation also point towards the real function of the camp. Thus, the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Jagiellonian University ruling states that the examined bones are human bones. The Institute of Court Expertise in Cracow ruling says that the sand sampled from the diggings contains an admixture of human bone ashes and fat. In the places where, according to the witnesses’ testimonies, the building containing the gas chambers was located, a certain amount of rubble was found. On the basis of the measurements made during the examination of the place, a plan of the camp area has been drafted. On this, all the remains of the camp have been marked. Apart from that, the files contain a plan of the camp from the period when it was operational, made by former camp prisoners, and sent by the Central Jewish Historical Commission. The site where the rubble was found during the examination, by and large, coincides with the location of the gas chamber drawn upon this reconstruction plan [...] The liquidation of the camp took place after the revolt, in November 1943. All the machinery and metalwork was taken away, while the brick buildings were blown up; even the rubble was removed by train. A forest was planted over part of the camp area [...]18.

By 1993 (on the 14th of October, 1993, the Museum of the Former Nazi Extermination Camp in Sobibór was founded), the information in the documents left by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland had been considered to be the only true official analysis of the state of preservation of the former camp. The geodetic map drawn in June of 1951, by Engineer Marian

18 Zbigniew Łukaszewicz, Obóz zagłady w Sobiborze, [The Extermination Camp in Sobibór], “Bulletin of Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, 1947”, vol. 3, III, pp. 49-58.


Cudny (1:1000 map scale; the location of a few elements of the camp infrastructure identified by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, namely: the gas chamber, the well, the ditch which used to be the camp latrine, the barrack used as an electric power generator, the bakery, the armoury, a few dwelling barracks, the stable) had been the only one of this type until 2001. The map was a geodetic-topographic reference material for the archaeological research and examinations of the scene of the crime carried out in 2000, after a 55-year break, in the area of the former German extermination centre in Sobibór.

Photo 6. Geodetic map - part I (1:1000 scale) showing the location of the elements of the camp infrastructure pinpointed and identified by the Central Commission

for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland during the investigation and the inspection of the scene of the crime carried out in the years 1945-1946.

The map prepared by Engineer Marian Cudny in June, 1951. Copy - Marek Bem’s private collection


Photo 7. Geodetic map - part II (1:1000 scale) showing the location of the elements of the camp infrastructure pinpointed and identified by the Central Commission

for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland during the investigation and the inspection of the scene of the crime that was carried out in the years 1945-1946. The map compiled

by Engineer Marian Cudny in June, 1951. Copy - Marek Bem’s private collection

Photo 8. Traces of the remains of the camp buildings (Camp II). The date when this photo was taken is unknown. The photo is from Tomasz Blatt’s private collection


Photo 9. House in which the commandants of the Sobibór camp lived (Vorlager [the SS administration area]). One of the older photographs of this object, taken soon after the end of World War II. The precise date when the photo was taken is unknown. The photo is from Tomasz Blatt’s private collection


Photo 10. Site of the former extermination camp in Sobibór. The marked-off place is where, most probably, human ashes were found. The date when the photo was taken is unknown. The photo is from Tomasz Blatt’s private collection

Photo 11. Site of the former the extermination camp in Sobibór. The marked-off place is where, most probably, human ashes were found. The date when the photo was taken is unknown. The photo is from Tomasz Blatt’s private collection

For a long time after the end of World War II, the area of the former extermination camp in Sobibór was a deserted and poorly-known place. Throughout that period, no initiative had ever been taken in order to learn the history of the place or to commemorate it.


Mordechai Zanin, editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Die letzte Neies”, visited after World War II one hundred Jewish communities. He also got as far as to Sobibór. The author described the experience as follows:

“Passing oneself off as an English journalist in the post-war Polish realities - when the Communist government and the people were filled with hatred towards Jews and so plundered Jewish properties - opened to me the hearts of all the social classes: farmers, city dwellers, intellectuals and artists, who wanted to clear their conscience of sin. I saw the Jewish tragedy from the perspective of their conscience”. Zanin described everything he had seen, heard or experienced. His account, which was published by the New York newspaper “Forwards”, surely must have moved the American Jewish community. “In Sobibór There Was Nothing to See...” is the title of a chapter of his book entitled “Uber Stein Und Stock” which was published in 1952. The book described the extermination of the Jewish community from Włodawa:

[...] About 10 km away from Włodawa, along the railway leading to Chełm, is a railway station “Sobibór”. It is here in the Sobibór forest that the Jews from Lublin District suffered the greatest possible disaster. Now, silence permeates this small railway station, the forest is rustling around. Behind the forest flows the River Bug. The Polish-Russian border runs through here. Yet you do not have to worry that you are in the border area. A few peasants disappear in the thicket of trees. They are going back to their peaceful life. I stop a peasant and ask him to take me to the area of the extermination camp. The peasant stares at me, not understanding what I want of him. I say to him, “No, not for free! I will pay you well.” The peasant leads quite a meagre life. We could come to some sort of agreement. He, however, cannot understand why I want to pay him if there is nothing to be seen there. Indeed, there is nothing there. “What I mean is the place where Jews were murdered,” I say. “Ah.... Jews.” Deep in the forest many Jews were burnt during two years of the war. But there is nothing left there now. We have agreed that I will pay him for showing me round the place where there is nothing. We go across the railway tracks and a dirt road, and go deep into the forest. The peasant tells me that the Germans broke through the forest and that transports of Jews were directed straight to the gas chambers. Some traces of this suffering have been preserved. After a 20-minute walk we get to a bare patch of forest. At first sight it seems that it once used to be a village, which got burnt to ashes and the people escaped. Among the few weeds on the ground are broken pieces of brick and red-grey soil. The earth below the weeds is constantly being dug up, forming narrow and deep pits. All of this forgotten area seems to be smaller than the one in Treblinka.

In this area, there were five barracks for the SS and Ukrainian murderers. There were also two barracks for the Jews who had been selected from their transports for work (one for the women and the other for the men), a crematorium and a gas chamber which could accommodate 500 Jews. The 4 barracks in which the victims took off their clothes, the carpenter’s and the tailor’s workshops constituted a modern hell run on a scientific basis: all the camp buildings, houses and the crematorium


were made of stone coming from the dismantled Jewish houses in Włodawa. In the camp were killed Jews from Samosz, Rebiszów, Chełm, Włodawa, Lublin, Izbica, Chrasnopol and Lubartów - tens of communities. Brought here were prisoners of war from the Polish and Soviet armies, Jews from France, Czechoslovakia and almost any part of the European country. The people perished and disappeared with the smoke of the furnaces. Like in the other extermination camps, Sobibór also experienced a gold rush which swept through it. Each patch of earth in this area, beginning from the railway station, was dug through by local people. The peasant talks about it frankly. He still believes that if one searched the place carefully once again, they could find treasure. All his thoughts revolved around this treasure. This was implied by the questions he kept asking. I thought for a moment that he suspected me of having come here to do some excavation work to find this “treasure”. “Have there been any commissions here to investigate into this area?” I asked. “As far as I know, there have been none,” he answered cautiously. “Except for ordinary people, no one has ever come to do any search.” The sight of Sobibór is one of the most horrifying pictures out of all the cemeteries that have been destroyed in Poland. Everybody kept digging, exhuming the dead bodies, and took away anything they found. All the rest has become forgotten. The waters of the river have swept away the ashes of 800, 000 Jews. Part of the ashes was used as fertiliser in the forest, to make the trees more green and to make the bushes more delicate. Until this very day no one has thought of erecting a tombstone in memory of the murdered. No one has remembered that this is Sobibór, the place where only Jews were murdered.... only 800,000 Jews [...]19.

The idea of commemorating the victims murdered in this German camp of immediate extermination, came about only in the mid-sixties. In 1965, the Polish Board for the Protection of Monuments of Combat and Martyrdom made the decision to place, next to the entrance to the former camp, a commemorative stone tablet with an informative placard. The text engraved on this stone plaque forcibly conveyed the needs of the then historical politics binding in Poland at that time:

“At this site, between the years 1942 and 1943, there existed a Nazi death camp where 250,000 Jews and approximately 1000 Poles were murdered. On October 14th, 1943, during the armed revolt by the Jewish prisoners, the Nazis were overpowered and several hundred prisoners escaped to freedom. Following this revolt, the death camp ceased to function. ‘Earth conceal not my blood’ (Job).”

The concept of the manner in which the area of the former camp would be developed as conceived at that time, can now be seen as a peculiar reflection of the then state of knowledge of the history of the camp, and the approach to “interference”

19 Mordechai Zanin, W Sobiborze nic nie zostało [In Sobibór There Was Nothing to See...] (in:) Sefer zikaron Wlodawa wehasawiwa Sobibor. Yizkor Book In Memory of Vlodava and Region Sobibor, ed.: Sz. Kanc, Tel Aviv, 1974.


in this place. In addition, it reflects the interpretation of the socio-political intention of commemorating these places, as well as educating visitors.

In the forest, in the place where, supposedly, the gas chamber had once stood, a sculpture by Mieczysław Welter was erected. The statue depicted a dying mother with a child in her arms (with an inscription on its pedestal which reads: “In Memory of Those Killed by the Germans Between the Years 1942-1943”). An obelisk was also erected to symbolise the gas chamber. Close by, a mound-mausoleum was built, designed by Romuald Dylewski. This man, Romuald Dylewksi was also the author and driving force of the whole concept of developing the area of the former camp as a Memorial Site. The historical background to his concept was the disquisition written by Józef Marszałek in 1962 and entitled “The Sobibór Extermination Camp - 1942-1943”. In the part of the work in which topographical comparisons and references were paramount, Józef Marszałek makes use of the report on the studies and investigation carried out by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland:

“[...] regardless of this operation, through which the SS men expressed their rage over the armed revolt of the prisoners of the Sobibór extermination camp, the commandant of this lager received a special order to liquidate the camp. Almost immediately after the revolt, they started to dismantle and take-down and cart away the barracks. Some of this debris was burnt on the premises. The gas chambers were blown up. The court examination of these places carried out in 1945 only revealed the remains of rubble. This made it impossible to determine the area they had occupied or their measurements. The human ashes and the remains of human bones were scattered in extensive pits and covered by sand. In their place, a pine tree forest was planted. There only remained the empty shells of the dwelling houses of the camp personnel, taken away bit by bit by local inhabitants after the liberation [...]”20.

The topographic basis for Romuald Dylewski’s study were the maps of the new geodetic measurement taken especially with a view to designing the 1951 monument which had been commissioned by the PPRN (the Board of the District People’s Council) in Włodawa. Also, the designer had at his disposal, the sketches of the former camp made during the investigation work carried out by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland (1945-1946: the sketch was enclosed in the “Bulletin of the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland”, vol. 3, 1947) and the sketch issued by the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw in 1946. Romulad Dylewski drew up his plan on the basis of the tentative assumptions provided by the Department of Culture of PWRN (the Board of the Regional People’s Council) in Lublin. The sketch of the plan was also assessed and agreed upon by the PPRN in Włodawa and the Department of Culture of PWRN in Lublin. The final design was made within the scope of The Workshop of Plastic Arts in Lublin, where it was approved by the Artistic Commission of PSP (the State School of Plastic Arts):

20 Józef Marszałek, The Sobibór extermination camp, 1942-1943, Lublin, 1962.


Photo 12. Map of the Sobibór Memorial Site (Land Use Planning) Sobibór extermination camp 1942-1943, copy of the plan made by Architect R. Dylewski, elaborated upon

by Kazimierz Stasz, 1986. Copy - Marek Bem’s private collection

The extermination camp in Sobibór 1942/43, the concept of the monument; the technical description:

[...] The description of the present state of the camp. According to different testimonies and results of investigation, the camp occupied an area of approximately 60 hectares. In addition, it was surrounded by three layers of barbed wire, as well as mine fields. Inside, the camp was divided into five separate parts (fields) serving different purposes, including field III, where the gas chambers, the incineration pits, and the dwelling barracks of the prisoners-labourers were located. Only one gate led to the camp, through which ran the platform of the Sobibór railway station. Transports with people destined to be exterminated were rolled into this siding. In the November of 1943, Himmler’s edict brought about the liquidation of the camp in Sobibór. The barracks were dismantled and carted away, the gas chambers blown up, and the graveyard area was converted into forest. Nowadays, the area of the former Sobibór camp is covered by forest, and there are very few traces left; it is difficult to precisely reconstruct the plan of the camp. However, there exists enough evidence to determine the location of its basic elements. The diggings outline the area where buried are the ashes (the incinerated corpses) of the victims. Moreover, several surviving documents and the blown-up walls locate the place of the former gas chambers (the so-called bath house). The siding through which the victims’


transports used to come, still exists. Evident also are many minor traces like trees fenced-around, the remains of the barracks, as well as numerous objects scattered around the forest: plates, bowls, mugs, spoons, spectacle frames, parts of children’s prams, etc. Part of the birch forest - 14 hectares in size, where the majority of the traces of the camp have survived and which have been of greatest importance (graves, gas chambers) - have been handed over for the realisation of the monument. The aim of the monument is to pay homage to the victims and to commemorate this place. It is assumed that there will follow mass, group and individual visits to the monument.

The concept of the plan of the spatial development.

The concepts of the monument have been based around the elements confirmed and which constitute the essence of the murders committed here. By necessity, the monument omits any traces that were not fully confirmed or that were less relevant. The elements to be included are: the existing entrance railway platform, traces of the gas chambers, the graveyard and the area with the ash pits. These three elements of the camp constituted its main purpose and marked the victims’ path towards their extermination. This road, then, determines the whole shape of the monument. It is proposed to build a road, 10 m wide and 550 m long, which will connect these three links with three straight lengths. The surface of the road meant solely for pedestrian traffic (a line sharply broken at its bends) will be an asphalt pavement. At the same time, the road will connect the external area with the interior of the part of the forest allocated for the monument. The allocated part of the forest should optically be marked off from the forest complex by means of a strip, 6 m and 10 m wide, formed by the felling of the trees, as well as by a strip of bushes, 4m and 8 m in width, which will be planted here. The difference in width is meant to highlight the actual borders of the camp. It is important, while felling the trees, to preserve the trees bearing traces of barbed wire - these trees should, where possible, form the border of the allocated area. The sort of bushes chosen should be such as to underline with their colour and character the fact of this area being marked off (an ‘optical hedge’). The external borders of the whole camp, if it is possible to designate them, could be marked with stone posts. Similarly, all the determined elements of the camp should be marked over the whole area. The stones should be inscribed and described in the guidebook.

The railway platform area.The elements of this part of the monument are: the siding, the initial part of

the road, the plaques, the flagpoles and the tree-covered area. The siding remains unchanged; the recommendation is that it not be used economically. The initial segment of the asphalt road will, at the same time, be, in this length (about 120 metres), the entrance area to the site of the monument. Visitors will be able to arrive by train at the Sobibór station or by car at the car park situated next to the Sobibór station (the car park should be designed in such a way as to incorporate in it, the approach road on the Włodawa-Chełm route). They will also be able to get to the


road leading to the monument by foot. Four plaques, carved in stone, on stone plinths, each 2 by 5 metres in size, and secured by concrete, will inform visitors in four languages, e.g. Polish, German, French, Russian or perhaps Hebrew, about the camp. These will also be signposts providing information about the monument. The flag posts located next to the plinths will make it possible to mark this whole site at times of special celebrations. This will be the only set of flag-posts present on this site. It is recommended that trees and bushes are planted in the area of the platform, especially to hide the sight of the still-existing buildings. The buildings should be marked off by means of a fence which would separate them from the platform area. Within the platform area, about 50 metres away from the plaques, a public toilet should be built in a bushy area.

The area of the gas chambers. The gas chambers constituted the essence of the mass murder, being the place

of the ultimate ordeal of the victims. Therefore, this place especially deserves to be highlighted. The design assumes the covering of the traces of the gas chamber foundations (strictly in accordance with the base provided in the geodetic outline) with an asphalt yard. In this, the monument with a vigil light will stand. The asphalt yard will form as if a broadening in this part of the road, 30 m by 30 m in size. The resulting sharply determined rectangular will be surrounded by concrete, freely-shaped features incorporating preserved objects that had once belonged to the victims and which had been found in the forest - bowls, spoons, prams and other items, e.g. rolls of barbed wire, etc. In the centre of this rectangle will be placed a stone plinth, 6 x6 m in size and 30 cm high, with a large metal vigil light. Next to this will be placed a stone pillar, 4 x 4 m in size and 8 m high, which ,spatially, would constitute the climactic point of the monument. Incorporated within the pillar, made from partly processed stone , will be the found pieces (ferroconcrete and other) of the blown-up gas chambers. Additionally, it is proposed that affixed to the walls of the pillar, will be plaques bearing appropriate texts (in the languages as above). From the side of the road, on the front wall of the pillar, a huge figural sculpture (made of reinforced concrete on metal bolts) can be placed.

The clearing of graves.The forest planted on the graves should be cut down, possibly leaving a narrow

6-metre strip of young trees in order to preserve the fact that it was forested and to form appropriate spatial frames of the clearing. The frames could be highlighted even more by hedging (perhaps using species and cultivars that would be different form those planted outside). To protect this place of the deceased, it would be possible to surround the clearing with a fence hidden in the bushes. The only entrance to this clearing will be the road leading to the monument. In this length, the road (90 metres in length from the gas chamber yard) will end at a stone plaque, 5 x 10 metres and 40 cm high, where it will be possible to plant a small flower bed, possibly of roses (the only type of flower grown in the area of the monument). The plaque will


optically close the road and will enable visitors to lay flowers there. The essential element of the clearing will be a mound of ashes. The frame of the mound will be a stone wall, of circular shape with a 50-metre diameter, surrounded by a pavement (or loose stone), 1,5-2 m wide. The victims’ ashes should be moved to these frames, above all those, which now lie on the surface of the ground. The ashes, covered by earth, will form the cone of the mound. The earth of the mound should be sowed with grass to contrast it against the undergrowth of the clearing. Within the area of the entrance to the clearing (but not closer than 50 metres from the road) a public toilet should be built outside the clearing. The place should be sufficiently tree-covered. It is advisable to place a few benches (perhaps in the form of tree stumps or something) along the whole length of the road.”21.

Dylewski’s original design was, however, changed. Instead, a version was made (the official opening of the Sobibór Memorial Site took place on 27th June, 1965), which can be seen at present, and which existed in the unchanged form until 200022.

Photo 13. Site of the construction of the monuments in the area of the former extermination camp in Sobibór. Most probably the site of the former gas chamber

21 Romuald Dylewski (architect), Obóz zagłady Sobibór 1942/43, koncepcja projektu pomnika. Opis techniczny, [The Extermination Camp in Sobibór 1942/43. The Concept of the Monument Design. The Technical Description], Lublin, October 1962 . Copy of the original – Marek Bem’s private collection.

22 Report of the Commission on the construction of the monument on the site of the former camp in Sobibór. Produced on 27th May 1965. Copy of the original – Marek Bem’s private collection.


Photo 14. Site of the former Camp III. The photo was most probably taken in 1965

Photo 15. Area of Camp III. The place where the Germans buried the camp victims’ bodies and their ashes in huge pits. The photo was taken in the 1960’s.

The construction of the mound commemorating the murdered in the camp


Photo 16. Memorial Mound of Ashes commemorating the victims of the former extermination camp in Sobibór (the area of the former Camp III)

Photo 17. Area of the camp unloading platform. The state of this in the post-war period. The date when the photo was taken is unknown. The photo comes from Tomasz Blatt’s private collection


Photo 18. Area of the former unloading railway ramp. The state after the restructuring. Photo - Isaac Gilead 2007

Photo 19. Area of the former road connecting the unloading platform (ramp) with Camp II. Post-war photo. The exact date it was taken is unknown.

The photo comes from Tomasz Blatt’s private collection


Photo 20. Area of where the road existed that connected the railway platform with Camp II. Its present state after the restructuring.

The photo taken from the Museum of the Włodawsko-Łęczyńskie Lake District

Photo 21. Chapel which was located within the area of the Sobibór extermination camp when it was operational. The date when the photo was taken is unknown.

The photo is from Tomasz Blatt’s private collection


Photo 22. In place of the pre-war chapel which, during the operation of the Sobibór extermination camp was located within its area, was built,

in the 1980’s, a new St. John the Alms-giver’s chapel - a branch of the parish in Włodawa-Orchówek (Order of Capuchin Friars)

Photo 23. Kindergarten playground (Sobibór Railway Station). The kindergarten, which most probably was open in the 1970’s, was built in the area of the former extermination

camp in Sobibór (Camp II). The photo is from Tomasz Blatt’s private collection


Photo 24. Building of the former kindergarten - the Sobibór Railway Station (the area of the former extermination camp - Camp II). In 1993, the building was taken over by

the Museum of the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District in Włodawa to turn it into the headquarters of the Museum of the Former Nazi Extermination Camp in Sobibór

Photo 25. Part of the area of the former extermination camp (Vorlager) which was sold to private owners


From the late 60’s onwards, Polish historians have shown little interest in the German extermination centre in Sobibór. The anti-Semitic campaign of 1968, the forced emigration of many Jewish historians, and, generally, the negative atmosphere surrounding the “Jewish question”, led to stagnation in the scientific study on the Holocaust. The issue of the German extermination centre in Sobibór practically ceased to exist in the Polish people’s historical memory. However, historians from Israel, Germany, the USA and Holland focused a lot more attention to this question in the 70’s, but especially during the 1980’s and 1990’s. They conducted, among other work, further research into the approximate number of Sobibór camp victims. The valuable outcome of this research is that further use has been made, in some of the studies, of the sources obtained through court investigations and court trials against members of the German camp personnel in Sobibór. Due to this, some conlusions about the number of Jews murdered in Sobibór, as presented by Yitzak Arad, Peter White, Jules Schelvis and Tomasz Blatt, proved an important result of the research into the Sobibór question carried out at that time.

Photo 26. Area of the former extermination camp in Sobibór allocated for the Regional Museum in Włodawa. Contractor - “Unikart”, civil law partnership in Lublin, Ryszard

Feret, Engineer, MSc, Lublin, 1993. This map is a situational map extract - 1:1000 reduced to 1:2000 scale drawn up by PPE “Expol”Ltd. in Lublin


An allocated area of 9.82 hectares of the former German extermination centre in Sobibór, came under the control of the Museum of the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District. However, this took place as late as in 1993. This organization also opened a satellite branch under the name the Museum of the Former Nazi Extermination Camp in Sobibór.


A few comments on the plans, sketches and drawings describing the area of the camp

Zachar Filipowicz Popławski, in his memorandum from the 7th of October, 1943, informed the plenipotentiary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia in the Brest Oblast that, while serving in the Voroshilov and Zhukov army units, he learnt about other crimes committed by the Germans. This man, the political officer of the Voroshilov Soviet partisan unit, received, through official channels, reports from several partisans from this unit, namely Eiberg (political officer of the 1st company of the Voroshilov unit), Captain Abdułalijew and Partisan M. Żukowski (Bukowski). They reported on a death camp which was situated in the neighbourhood of the Sobibór railway station on the Brest-Chełm railway route.

They wrote that in the camp was a “furnace” - “bath house” which consisted of 8 chambers with “500-person capacity each”. In the Summer of 1943, Popławski was also informed about the gas chambers in the death camp by partisans who had come to join the Zhukov unit from the other side of the Bug river. Inhabitants of the village of Tomaszówka confirmed to the partisans the information about this extermination centre. They said that the Germans brought to Sobibór very many Jews from the East. They also said that on certain days, they could not leave their houses because the whole area was filled with the terrible stench of incinerated bodies. The above-mentioned Captain Abdułalijew notified Popławski that in their unit was a witness to the Sobibór camp as he had served there as a guard. He had escaped from Sobibór in the Spring of 1943, got across to Soviet partisans and reported to his new superiors about the Sobibór camp, providing them with very detailed information. His name was (Karakasz? Mrakasz?) Iwan Michajłowicz (born in 1922). He was a Ukrainian by descent, a member of the Komsomol, with secondary education. He was a sergeant in the Red Army.

During the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. After two-months’ training in Trawniki, he went on to do service as a guard in the German extermination centre in Sobibór. After 28 days, probably at the end of April, 1943, he escaped from the camp, together with nine other people (it is unknown whether they were just Ukrainian guards or whether there were any camp prisoners among them). In July, 1943, he joined Zhukov’s Soviet partisan unit (where, with time, he became a platoon commander) and he presented to his superiors, a detailed report on his service in the Sobibór extermination camp. Part


of his report was the plan of the camp that he drew1. His sketch indeed gives the impression of having been made a short time after his stay in the camp. It contains a lot of details which confirm the fact that its author must have been a camp guard. This supposition is particularly evident through the precise details supplied in regard to the details concerning the Vorlager [the SS administration area], the fence system, the arrangement of the watch towers, sentry boxes and interior gates, as well as the system of interior communication. The sketch was not scaled, but it provided the external measurements of the camp and the distance between particular lines of the external fence. Undoubtedly, the sketch must have been drawn in the Spring of 1943 or in the early Summer; obviously before the construction of Camp IV commenced. It contained practically all the elements of the camp infrastructure present in all the other plans, sketches and drawings which the Sobibór historiography has in its possession. It is striking with what precision he marked the location of the camp wells (such details may prove to be a valuable clue for archaeological research) and the route of the internal narrow-gauge railway. In the chronology of the testimonies and the research sources used in the description of the Sobibór camp history, his was the first plan of the camp in Sobibór.

Photo 27. Plan of the camp made by a former watchman in Sobibór - (Karakasz? Mrakasz?) Iwan Michajłowicz

1 Karakasz Iwan Michajłowicz, Zachar Filipowicz Popławski’s memorandum to the plenipotentiary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia in Brest Oblast, concerns Karakasz Iwan Michajłowicz’s account of the Sobibór death camp, 7th October 1943 r., Marek Bem’ s private collection.


Legend: The Sobibór camp consists of five main camps: I, II, III, IV, V.In Camp I, there are:

1. Guardroom, 2. Toilets/ablution area, 3. SS staff canteen, 4. SS staff casino, 5. SS staff dwelling house, 6. Armoury, 7. Ukrainian guards’ barrack, 8. Barrack where the duty officer is stationed and where the officers’ club is located, 9. Ukrainian guards’ canteen.

The number of German staff in the camp - up to 27.The number of Ukrainian guards in the camp - up to 80. Weaponry. All the Ukrainians are armed with Russian rifles. The number of rifles

- 120. The Germans are armed with 2 guns (SWT), 3 submachine guns; all the rest have Russian rifles. In the armoury are: 1 Dektariev machine gun, 1 light machine gun, 1 Czech pistol, 1 heavy Russian rifle, 1 heavy Polish rifle, 30 German hand grenades, and about 5000 rounds of ammunition.

Camp II consists of four houses where the Jewish artisans/workers lived and worked: 1. Women’s barrack, 2. Men’s barrack, 3. Locksmith’s and the carpenter’s workshops, 4. Tailor’s workshop, shoemaker’s workshop and other workshops.

The number of Jewish prisoner-workers staying in this part of the camp was about 250 people (selected to do labour in all the parts of the camp with the exception of Camp III).

Camp III: the place where the victims’ clothes and articles were sorted; it was also the clothing storage barrack.

Camp IV housed: 1. Bath house where the Jews were gassed, 2. Camp where the Jewish Camp IV labourers live, about 150 of them, 3. Incineration pits where the Jews are cremated, 4. (Tea Room?) and SS guardroom. Next to it, the houses - maintenance workshops, 5. Tower with a heavy machine rifle.

In Camp V, there were 60 West Ukrainian guards sent to the camp apparently to watch over the newly-built (part of the camp?). They have no contact with the general camp.

One of the first reconstruction plans of the German extermination centre in Sobibór is the Dutch sketch which was attached to the Report of the Concentration Camps Resolution Bureau in the Hague, dated from the June of 1946. So far the source from which this plan was taken has not been established2.

2 Jules Schelvis, Gedachten en reacties op de bomenlaan en de plattegronden van Sobibor, Amstelveen, 2003.


Photo 28. Situational plan of the German extermination camp in Sobibór. From the Report of the Concentration Camps Resolution Bureau in the Hague, dating from the June of 19463

Zbigniew Łukaszewicz, in his study published in 1947, which in fact was a sort of report (summary) of the investigation conducted by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, refers to the plan of the camp drawn by the Central Jewish Historical Commission.

“[...] Apart from this, the files contain one more plan of the camp from the time when it was operational, which has been sent by the Central Jewish Historical Commission, and which was drawn by former camp prisoners. The place where, during the examination of the scene of the crime, rubble was found, by and large, coincides with the location of the gas chamber marked on this reconstruction plan [...]”

The Historical Commission at the Central Jewish Committee in Poland set about, already in 1945, collecting survivors’ accounts and making attempts to find all the documents describing the extermination of Jews. I suppose that the plan presented below (most probably, the documents of the investigation into the Sobibór camp carried out by the Central Commission for Investigation of German Crimes in Poland, have not survived intact) is the one Zbigniew Łukasiewicz refers to. I have found a copy of it among the Dutch archives. It was attached to Nachman Blumental’s study that was entitled “The Death Camp - Sobibór” dating from the year 1946. The detailed description of the road leading from the railway platform to Camp II, the accurate sketch of Camps II and III, the unusually large number of details about the 3 Ibidem.


part of the camp where the sorting barracks were, and the much less precise and very general sketch of the infrastructure of Camps III and IV, may imply that this is the sketch Zbigniew Łukasiewicz talks about. Accordingly, it was made up on the basis of the information, provided between 1944-46, by the Jews who had survived the camp (during this period, testimonies and accounts were given by prisoners working in Camps I and II, namely: Cukierman, Podchlebnik, Freiberg, Zelda Metz, Salomea Hanel, Samuel Lerer, Eda and Ischak Lichtman, Menche Chaskiel, Leon Feldhendler, and Powroźnik, among others).

Photo 29. Sketch of the German extermination camp in Sobibór elaborated upon, most probably in 1946, by the Central Jewish Historical Commission.

Kurt Ticho’s private collection

“[..] Explanations of the plan “The Death Factory in Sobibór”:

1. Roll-call yard, 2. Men’s barracks, 3. Women’s barracks, 4. Locksmiths’, 5. Carpenter’s, 6. Tailor’s workshop, 7. Kitchen, 8. Bowling alley, 9. Bakery, 10. Laundry, 11. Dining tables, 12. Ablution area, 13. Hand luggage barrack, 14. Hand luggage sorting barracks, 15. Valuables storage barrack, 16. Hair and other articles storage barrack, 17. Tailor’s workshops for mending items of clothing from transports, 18. Furnace for incinerating documents and old things, 19. Latrines,


20. Central tower, 21. Shoes storage barrack, 22. High-quality tins storage barrack, 23. Gold, precious stones and money storage barrack, 24. Old shed, 25. Porch on which the Germans sometimes gave speeches, 26. Pigsty, 27. Power station, 28. Cashier’s office, 29. Yard where men undressed completely, 30. Clothes and underwear sorting tables, 31. Main clothes storage barrack, 32. Barrack where women took off their shoes, 33. Barrack where women took off their dresses and underwear, 34. Barrack where women had their hair cut, 35. Gas chambers, 36. Engine hall, 37. Crematorium, 28. Workshop, 39. Former graves, 40. Watch towers, 41. Drainage ditch, 42. Mine field, 43. Germans’ staff dwelling and administrative barracks, 44. Ukrainian personnel’s dwelling barracks, 45. Main gate, 46. Gate for the railway siding, 47. Guardroom, 48. Armoury, 49. Jeweller’s, furnaces for precious metal scrap, 50, Platform, 51. Rubbish pit, filled in after building the furnace (cf. 18 of this plan), 52. Chapel [...]”.

This sketch of the camp, prepared for the court cases held in Hagen against members of the SS personnel of the German extermination centre in Sobibór, was attached to the verdict documents to aid in the interpretation of the gathered evidence used in the prosecution. It had been drawn from memory by one of the witnesses, SS-Oberscharführer Erich Bauer, previously convicted in 1950, a former German guard in the Sobibór camp. He drew the map while in custody. Erich Bauer had been part of the camp personnel from its start to its finish. After having been sentenced to life imprisonment, he had no apparent reason to present the situation in a different way than it had been in reality. Obviously, the drawing is unprofessional and it was not made at an appropriate scale. However, the other part of this sketch which, most probably presented Camp III, has been mislaid. During the main court trial in Hagen, Bauer’s plan was constantly referred to and confronted, presented both to the defendants and the witnesses. The map was enlarged and put up on the wall during the hearings in Frankfrut am Mein and the Hague in the 60’s and 80’s. Most of the former prisoners agreed that this plan of the camp corresponded with the facts. The court pronounced the plan proper because, above all, it correctly placed the location of the camp relative to the railway line, as well as it suitably set out the locations of individual camp buildings and respective parts of the camp4.

4 Ibidem.


Photo 30. Plan of the German extermination camp in Sobibór prepared for the court trial in Hagen (1965/1966) (in) Rückerl A., NS-Vernichtugslager

im Spiegel Deutscher Strafprocesse, Munich 1977

Vorlager: 1. Guardroom, 2. SS staff dentist and Ukrainian guards’ jail, 3. SS kitchen, 4. Garage for Erich Bauer’s truck, upstairs - drying room, 5. Old pigsties and barber shop, 6. Bathrooms, SS ablution area, 7. SS laundry, 8. SS accommodation, 9. Gomerski’s accommodation, among others, 10. Supply storage barrack, 11. Former post office and SS accommodation, 12. Armoury, 13. Ukrainian guards’ quarters (barracks), 14. Ukrainian guards’ quarters (barracks), 15. Ukrainian guards’ quarters (barracks), 16. Ukrainian guards’ kitchen and canteen, 17. Ukrainian guards’ quarters (barracks), 18. Accommodation of the Ukrainian commander, 19. Bakery, 20. SS laundry and ironing room, 21. Sorting barrack (Jewish shoes), 22. Transit barrack (luggage was deposited here), 23, 24. Barracks for storing suitcases and luggage of Jewish victims, 25. Sorting barracks, 26, 27. Sorting barracks of Jewish clothes, 28. Barracks where women had their hair cut.

Camp I: 1. Tailor’s workshop, 2. Shoemaker’s workshop, 3. Carpenter’s and locksmith’s workshops, carpentry and metalwork, 4. Shoemaker’s workshop for Ukrainian guards, 5. Tool room, 6. Kitchen for Camp I prisoners, 7. Jewish women prisoners’ barracks, 8, 9. Jewish prisoners’ barracks, 10. Painting workshop.

Camp II: 1. Former forester’s lodge, camp administration, SS quarters and valuables storage barrack, 2. Storage barrack of food left after transports, 3. Shed, 4. Silverware storage barrack and electricity generator, 5. Stable and blacksmith’s, 6. Pigsty and hen house.


Camp III: 1. Barracks for Jews working in Camp III, 2. Kitchen and barracks for prisoners working in Camp III (”dentists”), 3. SS office space, 4. Engine room, 5. Gas chamber, 6. Fenced-off workplace, 7. Watchtower with a machine gun and a searchlight.

Camp IV: The construction of this camp was never completed. There were plans to process there the Soviet captured weapon and ammunition.

The remaining buildings: 1. Railway station, 2. Railway workers’ house, 3. Railway station utility room, 4. Post office, 5,6,7,8. Farms, 9. Sawmill, 10, 11. Farms, 10. Railway worker’s house.

Yitzhak Arad, Tomasz Blatt, Jules Schelvis, Alex Cohen, Martin Gilbert, Eugon Kogon, Billy Rutherford, Michael Tregenza utilised this plan in their studies (frequently changing different details on the basis of their own camp experience or in accordance with the research they conducted). Unfortunately, most of these studies, with the exception of those by Tomasz Blatt, Jules Schelvis and Yitzhak Arad, are not supplemented by any detailed interpretation of the given scheme of the camp.

Photo 31. Plan (No. 1) drawn by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Tomasz Blatt. Tomasz Blatt’s private collection

1. Railway platform, 2. SS dentist’s, 3. Ukrainian guards’ guardroom, 4. SS supply storage barrack, 5. SS quarters, 6. Quarters for SS, 7. Laundry, 8. Well, 9. SS bath house and barber shop, 10. Garages, 11. SS kitchen and canteen, 12. Camp commandant’s accommodation, 13. Armoury, 14-16. Ukrainian guards’ barracks, 17. Bakery, 18. Clinic, 19. Tailor’s workshop, 20. SS shoemaker’s workshop, 21. Locksmith’s,


22. Carpenter’s, 23. Ukrainian guards’ shoemaker’s workshop, 24. Painters’ studio, 25-26. Prisoners’ barracks, 27. Prisoners’ kitchen, 28. Women’s barrack, 29. Latrines, 30. Drainage Ditch, 31. Transit barrack where prisoners deposited their hand luggage, 32. Hand luggage sorting barracks, 33. Yard where the victims undressed, 34. Food storage barrack, 35. Cashier’s office where Jews handed over their money, jewellery, etc., before entering the “heavenly way”, 36. Electricity generator (engine), 37. Stable, pigsty, hen house, 38. Camp administration building and “valuables” storage barrack, 39. Ironing room, 40. Shoes sorting and storage barrack, 41. Garden, 42-43. Hand luggage sorting and storage barrack, 44. Sorted clothes storage barrack, 45. Barracks where women undressed and where their hair was cut, 46. Shed with a furnace to incinerate documents, photos, personal documents, books and damaged clothes, 47. Chapel, 48. Latrines, 49-50. Barracks and kitchen for the prisoners working in Camp III, 51. Gas chamber, 52. Annex for the engine producing gas pumped into the gas chamber, 53. Fenced-off yard or barrack, 54. Mass graves, 55. Open-air crematorium.

Photo 32. Plan (No. 2) drawn by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Tomasz Blatt. Tomasz Blatt’s private collection


Photo 33. Plan drawn by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Jules Schelvis (in:) Jules Schelvis, Vernichtungslager Sobibór, Hamburg/Munster 2003, pp. II-III

Photo 34. Plan elaborated upon by Michael Tregenza. Original - Michael Tregenza’s private collection. Copy - Marek Bem’s private collection


Moshe Bachir, was born under the name of Szklarek on 19th July,1927 in Płock. He was brought to the camp on 24th May, 1942 from Zamość, in one of the first transports, with over 2000 people on board. Right after his arrival, he found himself among the group of 50 men selected for work. During the first three months, he worked in Bahnhofkommando. Then, he worked in the food storage barrack and later as a “hairdresser”. After the war, he emigrated to Israel, where he wrote a thorough account of his stay in Sobibór meant for the kibbutz of the ghetto fighters - Beit Lohamei Hagetaot.

Photo 35. Plan drawn by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Moshe Bahir5

Bahir Moshe: “[…] The Five Lagers of Sobibor. There were five separate camps at Sobibor:Lager No. 1 served as a place for concentrating all those who were brought

to the camp. Here the men were separated from the women and children; here, the strong and healthy men were selected and grouped into labor squads. They would wait in this Lager until they were transported to Lager No. 2. Lager No. 2 - After the thousands of men were brought in, Oberscharführer Hermann Michel took a census, counted the men and made a speech in which he promised that, after all the arrangements were completed, they would be sent to the Ukraine to work and would live there until the war ended. Naturally, they had to leave on their journey neat and clean and, therefore, they were ordered to strip and were taken to Lager No. 5 Jules Schelvis, Gedachten en reacties op de bomenlaan en de plattegronden van Sobibor, Amstelveen,

2003.


3. Prior to this, they handed over all valuables, gold and silver, to the Germans, who listed each item with strict precision. Lager No. 3 - the gas chambers. Lager No. 4 - the place where the Germans and Ukrainians lived. Lager No. 5 - This camp was erected later, at the end of 1942. This was the place where the “prisoners’ squadron,” the notorious Strafkommando was. This squadron was engaged in removing trees, clearing the area and preparing it for the construction of Underground storehouses for weapons. The commander of this camp was Oberscharführer Hubert Gomerski. Lager 3 was closed on all sides to the prisoners of Sobibor. It was impossible for us to see what was going on in that Lager because of the grove of pine trees which surrounded it. We saw only the roof of the “bathhouse” which protruded through the trees […]”6.

Chaim Engel, a former Sobibór camp prisoner, did not leave any plan of the camp. He only attached to his accounts, a small sketch - the outline of Camp I, the road connecting it with Camp II, a section of the narrow-gauge railway line from the platform towards Camp III, and the yard with the sorting barracks of Camp II. Chaim Engel worked in a sorting barrack, so it can be assumed that his depiction of these objects is reliable. The information he provides is an important clue in the reconstruction of the actual camp infrastructure. As the archaeological excavations completed in 2011, aiming at finding the route of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, led to the identification of its eastern and northern end; the details marked on Chaim Engel’s sketch might prove a useful clue in any future archaeological exploration of the area of Camp II and its immediate surroundings.

Photo 36. Plan made by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Chaim Engel. Photo - Kurt Ticho’s private collection. Copy - Marek Bem’s private collection

6 Bahir Moshe, The Revolt. Testimony of Moshe Bahir, (in:) Miriam Novitch, Sobibor. Martyrdom and Revolt, New York, 1980, pp. 139-163, translation from English - Albert Lewczuk vel Leoniuk.


Kurt Ticho was born on 11th April, 1914, in Brno, Moravia (nowadays the Czech Republic). In April, 1942 Ticho was “resettled” from Terezin to Trawniki. From there, he was transferred to the ghetto in Piaski, where, on 6th November 1942, he found himself in a transport to Sobibór that consisted of three thousand Jews. At first, he worked in a sorting barrack, then he took care of sick prisoners as a Sanitater (medical orderly). He managed to escape from Sobibór during the camp revolt and, from 19th October, 1943 until August, 1944, he remained in hiding with Stanisław and Anna Podsiadły. In the August of 1944, he got to Kamieniec Podolski and then, in the September of 1944, to Sagadura in Romania, where he joined General Ludvik Svoboda’s Czechoslovak Army Corps. Due to Kurt Ticho, the court in Frankfurt am Main launched their prosecution against Gomerski and Klier. Later, he emigrated to the USA where, in 1948, he applied for American citizenship. He wrote a lot of accounts and memoirs. Ticho died on 8th June, 2009.

Photo 37. Plan made by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Kurt Ticho7

Ticho Kurt:[…] Camp 1 was a large, rectangular yard secured by a high, barbed-wire fence

that bordered a large meadow on one side. We slept on three-tier-high wooden bunks in a prefabricated barracks. In the yard were the kitchen, a latrine, some troughs to wash ourselves and a deep well. Another barracks was partitioned into two parts. 7 Kurt Ticho, My Legacy, Holocaust, History and the Unfinished Task of Pope John Paul II, Włodawa,

2008, p.79.


One half held the Buegelstube, the pressing room, where young women mended and ironed laundry that had been boiled in kettles and washed by hand. In the other part was the Strickstube, in which other women knitted wool sweaters and gloves for the German army. They used yarn from victims’ luggage. When I arrived, women and men lived in the same barracks but had separate entrances. One of the prisoners, Eda Lichtman, had volunteered and been accepted by the women as their den mother. Men were forbidden to enter women’s quarters.

Three capos guarded us. Frequently, they beat us with heavy whips made of steel rods covered with leather. One day, on impulse, Moishe, the head capo, hit me on my right shoulder with the wooden pole that we used to pull buckets of water from the well. The pole, three inches in diameter, broke when it struck me. Since then, I never have had complete use of my right arm.

At the period I arrived, Sobibor consisted of three parts, identified as Camps 1, 2 and 3. In the corner of Camp 2, at the high fence adjacent to Camp 1, stood a tall wooden tower manned by armed Ukrainian guards. Living quarters, and the facilities I already have noted, were located in Camp 1, along with all the tradesmen’s shops, the laundry and bakery. Slave laborers were compelled to fashion tailor-made clothing and boots for the SS. The finished products were taken back to Germany or Austria when the SS men left on furlough. For every 42 days of murderous work, members of the SS received 18 days’ furlough. The Ukrainian guards had fewer advantages. They were permitted only to have their clothing and shoes repaired in the shops. Nobody made anything new for them.

Among the buildings in Camp 1 was a carpenter’s shop that employed more than 30 men to build furniture that the SS shipped home. Later, another building was added for painters. In this building, Max van Dam, a Dutch artist, worked on portraits of SS officers. Professor Schwartz-Waldeck, of the Viennese Academy of Arts, painted country landscapes. Alfred Friedberg, an amateur from Frankfurt, painted still-lifes. There was also a woman artist, but I never saw her work. Max once complained, “Kurt, I am painting Frenzel’s portrait; he sits for it half an hour each day. I should not only paint his likeness, but should show his soul, which is impossible for me….”

About 20 SS men were stationed at Sobibor. They lived in the Vorlager (fore-camp), located between the railroad ramp and Camp 1. On one side, the fore-camp extended into Camp 2. The SS quarters were neat, small, pre-fabricated houses, taken care of by Jewish women. The Ukrainian barracks and Waffenkammer (armory) also were located within the fore-camp. The entire complex, ultimately comprising four distinct camps, officially was called Sonderkommando Sobibor (Special Command Sobibor). It was a state within a state, ruled by the SS. These men were our judges, jury and executioners. They managed the camp ruthlessly for their own benefit. Obviously, the terrorized inmates had no rights. The SS decided who should live and who should die. Not only did its men abuse and rob us at will, they also stole valuables that should have been delivered to Germany. Thus they enriched themselves by stealing jewelry, gold coins, cash, all sorts of priceless heirlooms and anything else of value.


Camp 2 was adjacent to Camp 1. The horse stable, chicken coops, the ducks, a pig sty and a vegetable garden were located there. A large, three-storey frame house, which once had belonged to Jews, was there, too. The house had been taken apart in some town, brought into the camp and reassembled as the SS administration building. The sorting section, where Jews’ luggage was sorted and stored, was next to it.

Among craftsmen at Sobibor were: bricklayers; goldsmiths; roofers; a gardener, and other specialists to maintain camp facilities.To protect Sobibor from outside forces and prevent us from escaping, Wehrmacht soldiers had planted land mines in the meadow that abutted the high, barbed-wire fence on the side of the camp that faced the forest.

A narrow-gauge railroad, starting at the Sobibor ramp, traveled through Camp 2 into Camp 3. Whenever a transport arrived, a group of Jewish workers, Bahnhofskommando (Railroad Command), wearing blue caps, left their usual stations to load the dead and assist the sick and weak into the carriages that went directly to Camp 3. Their job also involved cleaning and disinfecting the cattle cars. Another function of the camp train was transporting food to the Jewish laborers in Camp 3 and returning the empty containers to the ramp, from where inmates carried them into the kitchen […]”8.

Stanisław Szmajzner was born on 13 March, 1927, in Puławy and died on 3rd March, 1989, in Goiania, Brazil. He was brought to Sobibór on 12th May, 1942 from Opole in a transport of two thousand people. During the first few months, he worked as a goldsmith. He made for the SS men, among other items, gold signet rings and other gold and silver valuables. Most of this gold came from the teeth of the Jews murdered in the camp. Later, Szmajzner was the “foreman” of the maintenance commando. Because of this position, he had access to all the parts of the camp, with the exception of Camp III. He also became a member of the prisoners’ committee preparing the revolt in Sobibór. After the war, in 1947, he left for Brazil. In 1968, he published in Portugal, his book about Sobibór entitled “Hell in Sobibor. The Tragedy of a Teenager Jew”9.

8 Ibidem, pp. 80-83.9 Stanislaw Szmajzner, Inferno em Sobibor: A tragédia de um adolescente judeu, Published 1968

by Bloch.


Photo. 38. Plan (the camp in 1942) made by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Stanisław Szmajzner10

Photo. 39. Plan (the camp in 1943) made by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Stanisław Szmajzner11

Aleksander Peczerski, in July, 1974, at the request of the court in Frankfurt, made a rough sketch of the camp. It can undoubtedly be assumed that Peczerski (though he stayed in the camp for only 22 days) knew precisely the topography of Sobibór. After all, he had spent a considerable amount of time preparing the camp prisoners’ revolt. Unfortunately, the sketch he drew does not contain any details,

10 Stanisław Szmajzner, Hell in Sobibor. The Tragedy of a Teenager Jew, typescript, MPŁW’s archives.

11 Ibidem.


since it is only an outline of the camp. Still, it is worth having a closer look at the two marked roads linking Camp II with Camp III. His is the only sketch where these two roads connect the two Camps. All the remaining plans show the Himmelfahrtstrasse [the “Road to Heaven”] alone. It is quite likely that on his plan, Peczerski, apart from the path leading to the gas chamber, marked the path leading from Camp II to a place which is also marked in some other plans (those by Bolender, Blatt and Schlevis, the plan from the court trial in Hagen). This is the path that also leads to what is most frequently referred to as “the fenced working yard” or “barrack.” Regrettably, although they marked this object on their plans or sketches, none of the witnesses provided any details as to its function, or the communication system between this place and the rest of the camp infrastructure.

Photo 40. Plan sketched by former Sobibór camp prisoner, Aleksander Peczerski. Copy taken from MPŁW’s collection


Activating the crematoria, after the restructuring of the camp, dramatically changed the everyday character and appearance of Camp III. It can be assumed that the management of the camp decided to prepare a new site near Camp III. This is where the executions by shooting were to take place and from where the corpses had to be taken by the prisoners working in Camp III, to the crematorium zone. It is only from that moment onwards that those corpses underwent, together with the unending stream of bodies taken out of the gas chamber, subsequent procedures meant to cover up all trace of those crimes. Perhaps this place was the one marked on the schematic camp plans (made by both former prisoners and members of the camp staff) as the ‘fenced working yard’. With the exception of this laconic note, I have not managed to find any information about this site. It is marked on various maps and is remembered, but in those times, nobody knew exactly why it had been fenced-off. I cannot exclude the possibility that it played the role of a ‘symbolic Lazaret’.

During the archaeological excavations conducted on that site, in 2001 (about 50 metres west of the possible location of the gas chamber, and 80 metres south-west from the place between the ash pits), the archaeologists came across the remnants of ‘some’ structure. The archaeological work in 2001 was only preliminary in character; and only in 2011 was this resumed. Therefore, now it is difficult to unambiguously determine what kind of structure it used to be. Perhaps the object is the relic of an extended wooden barrack that was about 60 metres long and 6 metres wide. It could also have been a yard surrounded by a high fence. The longer axis of the structure is situated north-south. At its northern end, the object was bordered by another adjoining ‘building’, 14 metres by 4 metres in size. Both possible structures had been built of wood. In a few places, especially in the middle part of the bigger structure, traces of vertical wood foundation blocks or post holes were found. It can be assumed then, that if it really was a barrack, the wooden floor of it was built upon some wood footings, raised up from the ground (about 60-70 cm).

On the site of the smaller structure, two huge wooden beams, 210 cm long, were discovered. In the upper part of these beams, a row of holes, 5-6 cm in diameter had been drilled, and in a few of these, some wooden pegs were still stuck. The beams, coming from the construction of the barrack, most probably found themselves there secondarily, perhaps as a result of the demolition of those buildings. In the neighbourhood of the beams, the archaeologists also discovered two vertical wooden bearing posts. In the so-called ‘cultural layers’ of that structure, many things were found which had undoubtedly belonged to the victims or the personnel of Camp III. These include hair pins and combs, underwear and clothes buttons, spectacle frames and cases, spoons, forks and table knives, scissors, belt buckles and pendants, clasps, lighters, metal boxes, parts of shavers and razors, watch cases, watch mechanisms, cuff links, empty little medicine bottles and packages, mirror fragments, pocket knives, etc. It is worth noting down that in the central part of the smaller barrack, within only a few square metres, a lot of Mauser and Mosin rifle bullets were found


(about 1830 rounds) that had been shot into the ground and therefore were deformed. Mauser cartridge cases (9), Mosin cartridge cases (3) and one unexpended round, were also found. In light of the above-mentioned findings, it is natural to ask what function such a huge barrack served. Undoubtedly, in its northern annex (the smaller barrack), victims were shot. The accumulation of so many bullets in a small area implies that the victims were lying at the time of their shooting. Had they been standing, the bullets (in horizontal shooting) would have become scattered after passing through their bodies. The distance from that barrack to the nearest mass grave is only 60 metres, and it is about 100 metres to the centre of the grave area.

Professor Andrzej Kola, archaeologist: “[…] it seems, in light of the present-day findings, that such a big barrack, whose remains – not yet completely discovered – are indicated as object E, could have functioned as an undressing room and a place for sorting the victims’ clothes and belongings. This working hypothesis should, however, be verified by further archaeological excavation research of the structures outside the grave area in Camp III […]”.

The air photos taken in 1940 and 1944 of the camp area, show clear signs of a road leading from the area of Camp II towards the place where those structures were found. It can be assumed that from the Autumn of 1942 to October 1943, the same procedure was followed in transporting the victims by narrow-gauge railway from the platform to Camp III. This was that they were taken in narrow-gauge railway wagons to the area of the crematorium pits where they were shot and then burnt together with the other corpses brought from the gas chamber. We could assume then, that the promises the Germans made that all those present on the ramp would be taken to the “Lazaret” [field hospital], were intended to effectively calm them down. However, from the moment the two wagons at a time left the loading platform filled with the sick, the infirm and the disabled, as well as children and pregnant women, there was no need to continue the farce. Those dozen or so people were taken near to the crematorium pit, were forced to undress, were shot and then their bodies were burnt.

The act of rolling only two narrow-gauge wagons at a time, filled with just a dozen or so victims to the place of their death, was the only means possible to guarantee the element of surprise, keep full control over the victims and maintain the speed of execution. The object discovered by the archaeologists in 2001, indicated in different descriptions by means of letter ‘E’ (located 50 metres away from the gas chambers), and presented in the former prisoners’ accounts in the form of a fenced yard, could have played the role of the ‘long-awaited Lazaret’. This was the place where the people sentenced to death by shooting were taken (they were either the people selected by the camp staff to be ‘cured and rested’ or they were those who had volunteered when the Germans had ‘informed them’ or ‘proposed to them’, usually during the roll-call, that there was a possibility for them to go to the


“Lazaret”). Groups who arrived in the so-called ‘small transports’, i.e. transports of several dozen Jews, could have been sent there, as well. These were groups who had been force-marched to the camp or had arrived in carts or trucks. In accordance with the procedures imposed by the camp management, it did not pay to activate the gas chamber for such small numbers of people, so they were shot. These groups of Jews, just like all the others, were led through the transit barrack to Camp II, where they left their luggage, partially undressed and were led towards the barrack which might have been called the “Lazaret” or hospital.

Erich Bauer: “[...] at first the corpses were thrown into big, previously dug-out pits, 50 metres

by 50 metres in size, and covered by chloride. The resulting stench was simply unbearable; therefore, in the Winter of 1942/43, they were pulled out by means of a digger, and incinerated. The ashes were collected into barrels, later to be used as a fertilizer in the garden and farm areas of the camp. With time, the corpses were incinerated immediately after a gassing was over. In the case of smaller transports of just a few hundred newcomers, gassing “did not pay” so they were shot dead. All the prisoners knew about the gassings and the incineration, as everyone could see the glow from the fire and could smell the permeating odour of incinerated bodies, which was just floating in the air. After the prisoners’ revolt on 22nd October, 1943, the camp was liquidated at the end of 1943 [...]”12.

Moshe Bahir reports that just after the arrival of any new transport and the unloading of the Jews from the wagons, the healthy men, women and children were formed into a separate group. The weak and the sick were then ordered to get into the narrow-gauge railway wagons, whose rails began at the platform and ran parallel to the main railway tracks. Those who were too exhausted due to the hardships of the journey, were thrown onto the wagons by the Bahnhofkommando crew. The Germans informed everybody that the people were being taken to the Lazaret, i.e. the “hospital”, where they would be given proper treatment. The Lazaret was about 200 metres away from the platform.

Moshe Bahir remembered frequent cases when Wagner had spotted someone in a group of labourers ready to set off for work, whose appearance he didn’t like for some reason. He then would immediately decide that person’s fate. He would take the unfortunate out of the column and personally take that individual to the Lazaret. As soon as this was done, he would return after a few minutes in a cheerful mood. Eda Lichtman remembered it had been Paul Groth who, most often during roll-calls, selected the sick and exhausted prisoners and took them to the Lazaret. Tomasz Blatt recalls that individual persons, having been caught in the neighbouring area and brought to the camp, were also taken to the Lazaret. He stated that they were marched into the camp and shot in the Lazaret. The Lazaret, according to Tomasz 12 Justification of the court’s verdict announced in the trial against Erich Bauer, Lfd.Nr. 212a: PKs

3/50,Berlin, 8th May 1950.


Blatt, was located at a small, wooden chapel where, when the camp first started up, the Germans killed the disabled and infirm people, as well as all those who were not able to walk to the gas chamber on their own.

Later, when it was possible to transport the prisoners by means of the narrow-gauge railway, the execution of the victims was moved to the crematorium area in Camp III. Abraham Kohn stated in his accounts that the camp prisoners had known perfectly well there was no real Lazaret in the camp. When a decision was made to take somebody to that place, they knew at once the person would be taken to Camp III. According to Zelda Metz, when new transports showed up, the wagons were moved onto the siding. The newcomers got off their wagons, carrying all their belongings. The sick got to the Lazaret by narrow-gauge railway. There, ‘Dr Gomerski’ shot them down with his gun. Kurt Ticho recalls that those prisoners who fell ill or were caught red-handed committing a crime in the camp, were also taken to the so-called Lazaret and shot dead. The number of labourers was later made complete when new transports arrived. Margulies mentions Paul Groth, who often asked if anybody was tired or ill. He immediately sent those who had come forward away to the Lazaret, and he did so with ‘a kind of bestial satisfaction’, which was quite visible on his face. The area where ‘the sick and tired’ were shot was called the Lazaret. Accessibility to the Lazaret must have been an important element in deciding upon its location. On most of the plans sketched by former prisoners, as well as camp guards, it is quite evident that the alleged barrack which could have functioned as a Lazaret (and which was in fact a ‘waiting room’ before the execution), was easily accessible from Camp I, Camp II and the yard between both Camps. The road to that barrack started at the western fence of Camp II and ran along the “Road to Heaven’. In the air photos from 1940 and the first half of 1944, the path is clearly visible.

However, this access path appears (it seems so at least) somewhere in the middle of the “Road to Heaven” as if it were coming out of it, as if it were a ‘branch’ road. It cannot be excluded that it was actually connected to it and from that point onwards, it was not an ordinary path, but, similarly to the ‘Road to Heaven’, a passageway between the two walls of a high fence.

Most probably, smaller transports of the prisoners were not taken to the gas chamber. Rather, they were force-marched, after all the routine reception procedures, from Camp II, along the initial parts of the ‘Road to Heaven’ and directed left towards the double-fenced path running towards the Lazaret or ‘the waiting room’. The path led the prisoners into a barrack or a fenced yard. In the same place, in which the road ran out of the Himmelfatstrasse, the path could have been entered from the clearing which was easily accessible from Camp I, Camp II and the yard between the Camps. It cannot be excluded that the access road to the waiting room barrack was not connected with the ‘Road to Heaven’. This place might have been reached from Camp II through a separate exit, but not the one directly connected with it.


Photo 41. Luftwaffe air photos from 1940. The area of the future extermination camp in Sobibór. Marked in the photo is the then existing road which could have functioned, later in the camp, as the road leading to the above-mentioned object ‘E’ (archaeological description from 2001) - the alleged place where prisoners were shot dead, the camp’s ‘Lazaret’. This is also referred to in the plans drawn by some witnesses as “the fenced

working yard”

Photo 42. Luftwaffe air photo from 1944. Marked is the road leading to object “E”


Such a communication layout inside the camp allowed the guards to easily lead to the Lazaret, the prisoners from smaller transports coming out from Camp II, as well as the Jews working in the camp who were to be killed because of poor health or because they had run afoul of some camp rule. Closed in a big barrack or inside a fenced yard, they were under full control. Before the promised ‘disinfection’, they undressed and were taken a few at a time to a place in front of the northern wall of the barrack. To this structure, as preliminary research has shown, another ‘structure’ was adjoined. Perhaps this was either a fenced-in area or a shelter, 14 metres by 4 metres in size. It is in that place that the prisoners were shot. First, it appears they were forced to lie down on the ground. The archaeologists found there 1830 rifle bullets shot into the ground. The crew of the Jews working in Camp III then took the corpses to the crematoria, while the victims’ clothes and other belongings were sent to the sorting place. Individual prisoners were shot in the same place and in the same way.

Verification excavations of the anomalies in the boreholes, as well as geophysical research conducted to the south of object ‘E’ in the Spring of 2011, confirmed its continuation to be about 75 metres long in total. Its width is always 6 metres, the side walls are sloping, with visible signs of wood boarding. Further research on object E/2001 carried out in the Autumn of 2001 uncovered another 25 metres in its length, which amounts to 100 metres in total (the total number being the sum of the measurement values of the excavations in 2001 and 2011 respectively). The object is exactly 6 metres wide along its entire length. The walls are sloping, at times boarded with nowadays-decayed wood. At its southern end, object ‘E’ was 8 metres in width in 4 metres of its length. In its south-west part, on the other hand, the archaeologists found something which was most probably the remains of wooden stairs. In its eastern part, numerous empty rifle cartridge cases were found, while in the western part, the excavators found mostly machine gun cartridge cases. At the 50th metre and the 25th metre of object ‘E’, the remains of sand embankments, 2 metres wide, were uncovered. The archaeologists’ preliminary analysis led them to the conclusion that (with a high degree of probability, as they claim) object E used to be a shooting range. However, at the present-day stage of archaeological research, if we want to unambiguously determine the actual function which object E served, it is necessary to search for objects analogous to this one.

To the north of object ‘E’, during the same archaeological excavations, a south-eastern quoin of an object similar to object ‘E’ was found. On the basis of the boreholes, its length in the western direction can be estimated at 15-20 metres, and its width, at about 5–6 metres. In the fill of this object, a few small iron items and pieces of vodka bottles were found. Perhaps that was the place where the SS-men on duty in Camp III had their barrack – the one called the ‘Tea Room’. Roughly in its 50th metre of length, on the eastern side of object E, a pile of broken vodka bottles and Dutch bottles were excavated. At present, it is hard to say with certainty whether


this was a sort of rubbish tip or another object somehow connected with the barrack (guardroom) for the SS men supervising Camp III.

The barbed wire fence of Camp III was systematically interwoven with branches of coniferous trees because this ensured that nobody could see from the outside, what was happening inside. SS-Oberscharfurher Kurt Bolender, Hubert Gomerski and Erich Bauer were in charge of Camp III. Bolender, wanting more comfortable working conditions in Camp III, had a wooden hut built at the edge of the crematorium pit. Bauer reports in his testimony that, “from there, he could watch the cremations, enjoying himself at the same time by, e.g. baking potatoes over the flames arising from under the pit”13. Bauer went on to claim that “They had quite a comfortable life there”14. The hut that Bauer mentions was probably a small barrack, a guardroom for the Germans on duty in Camp III. Later, one of the Ukrainian guards sketched a plan of the camp and marked the building as the one located at a small distance to the north of the gas chamber. He called it the “Tea Room.”

“[…] they take the stripped corpses to the pyre, throw them onto the ground and quickly place them on the rail tracks (about 1000-1500 people at a time). Then they light a small fire and the bodies start burning. Only one “Mr.” German is sitting in the restaurant over a glass of rum, giving out orders, “That one is working badly, shoot him. Look at that one! He’s not laughing, drown him in a barrel of water. Oh, yet another! He is too weak – hang him.” What remains after the bodies of those people, who an hour or so ago were still alive, was white burnt-out bones, which are now turning into ashes and will be thrown into the pits. This process is going on night and day. People die and the Germans take all their belongings, making themselves richer and richer […]”15.

In Camp III, alcohol was drunk by the litre. Gomerski made no secret of the fact that the personnel drank a lot. He even admitted that he himself would drink a litre of vodka and lots of beer each day16. Bauer drank so much that Commandant Reichleitner threatened to send him away from the camp, which was exactly what had earlier happened to Gromer. Lager III was perfectly isolated from the rest of the camp and anything that concerned it was kept absolutely hushed-up.

The archaeologists’ hypothesis, which tentatively assumes that the whole of the uncovered object ‘E” is the remains of a former shooting range, raises some doubts. It is possible, though, that object ‘E’ was not a coherent whole, but rather consisted of two independent and different parts, each serving a completely dissimilar function. 13 According to Ittner, Weiss, Gromer and Bauer joined Bolender and Gomersky, who also operated

the engine used to gas the victims.14 Erich Bauer’s interrogation protocol, ZStL-251/59-8-1590, Berlin, 20th November 1962.15 Zachar Filipowicz Popławski’s memorandum to the plenipotentiary of the Communist Party of

Byelorussia in Brest Oblast, 7th October 1943, Marek Bem’ s private collection.16 Hubert Gomerski’s interrogation protocol, Frankfurt am Mein, 28th November 1973.


The natural sand embankment pinpointed in its half length, might have been the borderline between those parts. There is also a possibility that a barbed wire fence ran there on both sides of the 2-metre-wide path, which was the inner fence isolating Camp III from the remaining parts of this extermination centre. The vast majority of the accounts given and plans drawn by some witnesses (former prisoners, camp staff members and Ukrainian guards) mark this place as the fence surrounding Camp III.

Due to such a division of object ‘E’, it is possible to make a distinction between the two parts: northern and southern. In all probability, the excavation of Professor Andrzej Kola in the 2001 field season pinpointed almost the whole of the northern part, while the one in 2011, brought to the fore, the information found within the southern part of object ‘E’. The reports on the two expeditions imply that the remains of construction elements and the artefacts found in those two parts differ from each other. The existence of such a division can also be implied by the road (independent of the Himmelfahrtstrasse), clearly visible in the air photos of the camp, which connected Camp II with the southern end of the northern part of object ‘E’. At the crossroads of the Himmelfahrtstrasse and the presently-existing road (the so-called Remembrance Alley), the archaeologists found, in the Autumn of 2011 (located on the western side of the Himmelfahrtstrasse), the remains of a dirt road which, running from the south, turns at that point towards object ‘E’. Conceivably, this is the road which linked Camp II with the possible Lazaret - the northern part of object ‘E’.

Some of the camp survivors marked on their own sketches an object which, without specifying its function, they called the ‘fenced working yard’ or ‘barrack’. Each of them marked it behind the fence, within Camp III. Assuming that it is actually two independent camp objects, it is possible to hypothesize that the northern one was the alleged “Lazaret” (the site where shootings took place), while the southern might have been connected with the so-called Camp V (the Ukrainian guards’ barracks, the reserve camp of the camp guards). It cannot be precluded that it could have been, according to the archaeologists, a training shooting range for the soldiers living in Camp V (cf. Franz Suchomel’s testimony above). At present, information on this particular subject is very scarce.

Sector V of the camp functioned for no longer than two or three months. It was a separate part of the camp and was not structurally connected with the extermination centre as such. The soldiers stationed in that sector might, however, have been assigned the task of providing the external protection of Camp IV which, under construction, was just becoming operational.

The protection of the entire camp was strengthened most probably because Camp IV (the northern Camp) was under construction at that time. The German air photos of the former camp in Sobibór, taken in March and May, 1944, depict very clear contours of an unknown object neighbouring the western fence of the


extermination centre. The surface archaeological research (carried out in 2010 and 2011) confirmed the existence of pieces of concrete debris, barbed wire, personal belongings and objects of everyday use. Even nowadays, there exists a road leading down to this place. This coincides with the road visible in the air photos. It starts at the site where, while the camp was in operation, there was free space between Camp I and Camp II. Jan Biskupicz17 and Hersz Cukierman18 both mentioned this place in their accounts. Biskupicz claims that in the final stage of the extermination camp’s existence, yet another Camp was built in his neighbourhood, and that Wehrmacht soldiers were accommodated there. He believes that the place had nothing to do with the extermination centre. Cukierman states, however, that there was also a big reserve camp for the Ukrainians there. Iwan Karakasz, a Ukrainian guard, marked this object on his plan, calling it “the fifth Camp” meant for the 60 ‘Western Ukrainians’ sent over to Sobibór to protect this new part of the camp. He claims that the soldiers had no contact with the “general camp’19. Kurt Bolender marked on his plan (in the “area” convergent with its location in the above mentioned air photos) that this was the barracks area of the “Ukrainian commando”. Supposedly, Bolender could have seen and recognised the object just after the revolt and escape of prisoners. That was when he was posted to Sobibór for his second tour. For the first one, he had served there from April till July 1942.

Jakub Biskupicz: “[...] finally, there was one more camp, the one in which Wehrmacht soldiers lived. It had nothing in common with the Sobibór camp, and we knew about it [...]”20.

Hersz Cukierman: “[...] not far from the forest was a big reserve camp for the Ukrainians, who tried to catch some of the Jews, but failed. About 350 Jews had escaped from Sobibór then. Running towards the forest, I came across my son [...]”21.

Iwan Karakasz: “[...] Camp V accommodated up to 60 people, they were Western Ukrainians sent here, allegedly, to protect the newly built (part of the camp?). They had no contact with the general camp [...]”22.

17 Jakub Biskupicz, transcript of the recording DVD/record 1–8, archive USHMM /RG – 50.120 0016, 20th March1992, translation from Hebrew - Małgorzata Lipska; Jakub Biskupicz’s interrogation protocol (in Bolender’s court case), sign. 13/112, Tel - Aviv/Israel, 17th May 1961.; Jakub Biskupicz’s interrogation protocol, sign. 13/97, Tel - Aviv/Israel, 6th June 1962.

18 Hersz Cukierman’s account, ŻIH’s archive, sign. 301/14, 17th September 1944.19 Zachar Filipowicz Popławski’s memorandum to the plenipotentiary of the Communist Party of

Byelorussia in Brest Oblast, concerning Iwan Michajłowicz Karakasz’s account of the Sobibór death camp, 7th October 1943.

20 Jakub Biskupicz, transcript of DVD recording/DVD No. 1-8, USHMM /RG – 50.120 0016 archive, 20th March 1992, translation from Hebrew - Małgorzata Lipska.

21 Hersz Cukierman’s account, ŻIH archive, sign. 301/14, 17th September 1944.22 Zachar Filipowicz Popławski’s memorandum to the plenipotentiary of the Communist Party of

Byelorussia in Brest Oblast, concerning Iwan Michajłowicz Karakasz’s account of the Sobibór death camp, 7th October 1943.


Kurt Bolender’s sketch:SS-Oberscharführer Kurt Bolender was stationed in Sobibór from the end of

April till July, 1942. Among other things, he was in charge of Lager III. During his court trial in Hagen, Bolender made a freehand sketch, which he interpreted and described during the court sessions as follows:

Photo 43. Plan sketched by former SS staff member in Sobibór, SS-Oberscharführer Kurt Bolender. Copy taken from MPŁW’s collection

Kurt Bolender: “[...] I have sketched the plan of the Sobibór camp the way I remember it. The

sketch is not drawn to real scale so it might not reflect the precise arrangement of the buildings. The broken lines at the bottom stand for the railway line from Chełm to Włodawa. Above is the camp. It was surrounded by double barbed wire interwoven with twigs and branches in such a way that no-one from outside could peep into the camp. I can’t precisely provide you with the surface area. From above, the width could have been 150 metres. The length of the gate up to the moats was 350 metres. In the bottom left corner, I have drawn the shunting track and the platform. This was the place where the newly arrived Jews were unloaded. Above this, I have drawn the gate and the guards’ hut. The guardroom might have been located a little more to the left of the fence. To the right of the guardroom, I’ve sketched the armoury, the Ukrainian quarters, the canteen and the quarters where I was accommodated during my stay in Sobibór. A minute ago, I added to the sketch and drew a house which


I numbered as 10. The house had already been there when the camp was built. Stangl lived in it. In the top left corner, I’ve marked off part of the camp which I have labelled “Jewish workshops”. This part of the camp already stood there when I arrived. These were the barracks which housed the tailor’s, shoemaker’s and goldsmith’s workshops, as well as other workshops. The part of the camp, which I described, shows Camp I. On the right-hand side was Camp II. The administration building is numbered 4. The administrator lived there. In the top right corner of my sketch, I’ve drawn a cluster of trees. Behind these, I’ve marked off Camp III. It comprised the graveyard, the large quarters for Jews, a machine gun stand and the gas chamber, numbered 5. Between Camp III and the administration area was the airfield and the muster ground. From the administration area to the gas chamber, leads a curved line which I have numbered 7. That was the so-called Schlauch. From what I remember, a maximum of ten cars arrived at the shunting track. When the train stopped, the gate was closed and the Ukrainian guards surrounded the train. I don’t know how the unloading proceeded. I assume the Jews got off. Then they were led to the yard next to the administration. During my stay in Sobibór, there were no undressing barracks. So they had to undress at that place. The Jews had to undress, the men and women separately. I witnessed such a procedure only once. Michel gave a speech before the Jews undressed. He said they had come to work and to settle there. It was necessary that they first had a bath and underwent disinfection to prevent infectious diseases from spreading. After the speech, the number of Jews that could be accommodated in the gas chamber [at one time] was told to undress. In my estimation, about 40-50 people could be accommodated in one gas chamber. When the Jews undressed, they were led through the so-called Schlauch. The Schlauch was a passageway, 1,5 metres wide, surrounded by barbed wire. It was the Ukrainians who took the Jews through the Schlauch to the gas chamber, not the Germans. In building number 5 of my sketch, there were three gas chambers. At the front side was a small building with an engine from a Russian T 34 tank. I don’t know all this exactly because I never saw it. We were only told about this.

When the Jews had entered the gas chambers, the Ukrainians closed the doors. To your question, my reply is that I never noticed any Germans taking part in this. As far as I could see, only the armed Ukrainians participated. The engine producing gas was operated by Ukrainians, precisely by one of them: a Ukrainian by the name of ‘Emil’ and a German truck driver called ‘Bauer’. I know that later, Emil the Ukrainian joined a group of partisans in Italy. I don’t know what happened to him. Bauer came from Berlin, or rather he arrived from Berlin as a truck driver. I never saw him later in Italy. When the gassing was over, the doors were opened and the Jewish working commando carried the corpses out of the gas chamber. At the same time, their gold teeth were pulled out. Behind the back part of the gas chamber building ran a narrow-gauge railway track which led to the graveyards. The Jewish working commando laid the bodies on quadrangular boarded wagons and drove them away to the mass grave. The mass grave was 60 metres in length, 20 metres in width and 6-7 metres in depth. The side walls were sloping in the form of an


escarpment to prevent them from collapsing. To your question, I reply that during my stay in Sobibór, corpses weren’t incinerated. I know this precisely. When I was there, corpses were arranged in layers in such a way as to accommodate as many of them as possible in one grave. I heard that later bodies were carried away by diggers and burnt. The remains, the bones were milled and mixed with sand, covered with sand and a grove of trees was planted on top. During my stay, the clothes that had been taken off were piled up in the open air. I knew nothing of their being put to further use. I can’t say anything about use being made of gold teeth, deposited ornaments or jewellery. I wasn’t interested in these things [...]”23.

Franz Hödl’s sketches:Austrian, SS-Unterscharführer Franz Hödl served in Sobibór from October, 1942,

till the outbreak of the revolt in October, 1943. He operated, together with Bolender, the internal combustion engine used to gas prisoners. He made his sketches of the Sobibór camp in 1966 and 1974. It is worth paying special attention to the details connected with Camp III. Like Bolender, he also marked the “free area” used as the runway and the landing strip for airplanes.

Photo 44. Sketch drawn by former German personnel of the Sobibór camp - SS-Unterscharführer Franz Hödl. Copy taken from MPŁW’s collection

23 Kurt Bolender’s interrogation protocol, the National Criminal Police Court, Munich, 5th June 1962.


Photo 45. Sketch drawn by former German personnel of the Sobibór camp - SS-Unterscharführer Franz Hödl. Copy taken from MPŁW’s collection

The vital source of comparative knowledge on the topography of the Sobibór camp is the plans (1:2000 scale) sketched by Polish geodetic surveyors in May, 1984, at the request of the Appellate Court in Hagen, in relation to the court trial against Karl Frenzel. They imply that the camp was 620 metres wide and 340 metres long. The total surface area of the camp, together with the minefield around it, was 25 hectares. In the part of the plans describing Camp III, under the picture of the crematorium pit, there is a comment which says that this is “the place where excavations uncovered the remains of the foundations and parts of trucks containing burnt human bones”. It is highly unlikely that this comment referred to the pieces of the truck on which was installed the mill for crushing human bones and ashes left after the cremations. However, this possibility cannot be entirely excluded. Probably, the phrase “...parts of trucks containing burnt human bones” refers to truck chassis which could have been used as grates in the cremation pits.


Photo. 46. Plan made at the request of the Appellate Court in Hagen in relation to the court trial against Karl Frenzel (1984)

Nowadays, it is not possible to definitely state what knowledge the Soviet government had about the mass murder of Jews during World War II. The reports which Moscow received from the territories occupied by the Germans, have still not been made available to researchers. The Soviet Union, the second military, political and economic power of the then world, remained indifferent to the extermination of European Jews. Hence, Jews could not expect that the Soviet Union would come to their rescue. Stalin was a rabid anti-Semite and he did not tolerate Jews. He brought about the extermination of the most eminent representatives of the Jewish nation. Without doubt, Soviet partisans roaming, in 1943, the area neighbouring Włodawa and Sobibór on the other side of the Bug River, must have been in possession of detailed information about the German extermination centre in Sobibór. Until now, however, not all of the documents of the court trials held in the Soviet Union against former guards, have been made available to the public. Some of the documents that have been released concerning the testimonies of, e.g. Raznogajew, Danilczenko, Pankow, Pawla and Szulc, prove how valuable such sources might be in working out the history of Sobibór. Probably during the court investigations and proceedings carried out in the 1960’s (by the KGB investigation team at the Ministry of Justice in the USSR) against the self-disclosed former Sobibór guards, a plan of the Sobibór extermination centre was made. The plan confirms the overlap between the knowledge of the Soviet analysts about the Sobibór camp history and the results of similar investigations and inquiries conducted, at the same time, in Western Europe. I have found this plan among the files of the Lublin IPN [the Institute of National Remembrance] archives concerning the court hearings of Szulc Emmanuel Henrykowicz on 27th April, 1961, in Winnica (the USSR).


Photo 47. Plan of the Sobibór camp made, most probably, during the court investigation and proceedings carried out at the beginning of the 1960’s by the KGB investigation team at the

Ministry of Justice in the USSR, against the self-disclosed former Sobibór guards

The remaining maps, sketches and drawings left by other former camp prisoners and Ukrainian guards can be treated as being supplementary material that might be useful in any attempt (including archaeological research) aiming at the reconstruction of the topography of the German extermination centre in Sobibór. These sketches, which were drawn by Ignat Danilczenko, Symcha Białowicz, Estera Raab, Menche Chaskiel and Arkadij Weisspapier, “only” constitute a very general visualisation. This is because they were meant to complement their testimonies and accounts in which they focused more on the principles and ways of the camp’s functioning, as well as their personal experiences, rather than any construction details24.

24 Plans, sketches and drawings of the topography (or part of it), which are available in different archive resources, and which were made by the following witnesses (former prisoners, Ukrainian guard, German staff members): Mosche Bahir, Symcha Białowicz,, Tomasz Blatt, Alex Cohen, Chaim Engel, Salomea Hanel, Mojsze Kornfeld, Kurt Ticho, Eda Lichtman, Icchak Lichtman, Chaskiel Menche, Alexander Peczerski, Esther Raab, Jules Schelvis, Stanisław Szmajzner, Arkadii Weisspapier, Erich Bauer, Kurt Bolender, Franz Hodl, Ignat Danilczenko, Emanuel Szulc, Iwan Karakasz.


Photo 48. Sketch attempting to reconstruct the death camp in Sobibór that was drawn by former camp prisoner, Estera Raab25

Photo 49. Sketch drawn by Ignat Danilczenko, former guard in the Sobibór camp. Copy taken from MPŁW’s collection

25 Zagłada żydostwa polskiego, [Extermination of Polish Jewry], elaborated upon by Gerszon Taffet, Philip Friedman, Central Jewish Commission, Łódź 1945.


Photo 50. Sketch drawn by former Sobibór camp prisoner, A. Weisspapier. Copy taken from MPŁW’s collection


Photo. 51. Mock-up of the German extermination centre in Sobibór made by Tomasz Blatt. The mock-up is kept in the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

What is indispensable in any future attempt to reconstruct the topography of the extermination camp in Sobibór (especially in archaeological work), is the prior analysis of the World War II air photos of this area. This is because these prove to be unique comparative materials. The most useful analytical tool will certainly be a stereoscopic reading of these air photos. Very careful application of this standard technique of photo interpretation may turn out extremely useful in the future. Doing this not only provides three-dimensional images, but also brings out details by analysing two images simultaneously. These photos proved very helpful, aided by GPS readings, in the archaeological research recently conducted, as they confirmed the assumptions made to the purpose of certain locations visible in all of these photos (e.g. the location of the so-called object “E” and the road leading to it, the ‘Himmelfahrtstrasse’). Comparing photos taken at different times of year might also be very helpful.

Luftwaffe reconnaissance missions in the area of Sobibór, took place between March and May, 1944. The air photos of this area before and after the extermination centre in Sobibór was constructed, were taken in 1940, on 28th March, 1944 and on 28th and 30th May, 1944 (GX – 168 – SK – 98-124, GX – 5081 – 8-9, GX – 8102 – SK – 187, GX – 19265/713,714, 719). One can assume that a bird’s-eye view provides little chance of identifying signs useful in the reconstruction of the camp. However, it is a mistake to conjecture that, for example, the dismantling of buildings with no foundations, does not leave any traces. In fact, such photos depict a lot of clear signs which imply the existence of the former fence, barracks and roads, as well as the location of the pits where the victims’ bodies and ashes were hidden. Many structures, which had been demolished before the reconnaissance air flights were made, can still be found in these photos. When the buildings of Sobibór were being torn down, the resulting debris was frequently burnt in situ, which leaves a trace in the form a light-coloured patch of earth with a charred spot in the middle. Such traces are clearly visible within the area of former Camps I, II and III. In other


parts of the camp, while the debris was moved to a different place for burning, the earth still preserved traces of former use, because vegetation needs time to revive, especially when the structures were razed to the ground, as doing this deprived the soil of its organic content. In Sobibór, like in the other “Operation Reinhardt” camps, the sandy soil has particularly preserved the traces of the fence-lines. Digging the post-holes in order to place fence-posts disturbed the barren under-soil. When the posts were later removed, these barren patches were left, as the grass or other plants grew over these disturbed patches with difficulty. In the air photos, these patches are in the form of white points present at regular intervals. Other disturbances of the earth also have left clear traces26.

26 On the basis of the air photos of the former and present area of the extermination centre in Sobibór taken in 1940, 28th March 1944 and 28th and 30th May 1944 and (GX – 168 – SK – 98-124, GX – 5081 – 8-9, GX – 8102 – SK – 187, GX – 19265/713,714, 719) and used as the research basis, the team documenting the archaeological research (Yoram Haimi, Wojciech Maurek, Marek Bem, Andrzej Kikowski, Grzegorz Fajge, The Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork) generated maps of selected elements of the camp and post-camp infrastructure: (1) Plan of the camp with the results of the archaeological research between the years 2000 – 2007 – made by The Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork in 2008; (2) Plan of the camp with the results of the archaeological research between the years 2000 – 2007, superimposed onto the air photos from the years: 1940, 1944/a, 1944/b, 1971, 2006. (3) Visualisation of the camp plan: general camp plan (Nos.1-5), Vorlager, gas chamber, narrow-gauge railway, The Herinneringscentrum Kamp Westerbork, consultation - Marek Bem, Westerbork 2008; (4) plans of the camp: general camp plan (versions 1-4), Camp I, Camp II, entrance gate, panorama of the camp, Marek Bem, Andrzej Kikowski, Warszawa 2003; (5) Visualisation of the camp plan – film Nos. 1-3, Marek Bem, Andrzej Kikowski, Warszawa 2004; (6) Plan of the camp with marked objects after the camp was liquidated (railway station, commandant’s house, pre-war Forest District house and the post office building, watchtower, chapel) and the building of the present-day museum; (7) Plan with the road running towards Camp III; (8) Plan with the road running from Camp II to the gas chamber, the so-called „Himmelfahrtstrasse” with Aleksander Peczerski’s sketch in the background; (9) Plan with elements of the infrastructure of Camp I and Vorlager; (10) Plan with the following camp infrastructure elements: railway platform, sorting barracks, Camp II and the „Himmelfahrtstrasse”; (11) A detail of the air photo of the area of the former extermination centre (part of Vorlager, railway platform, Camps I and II); (12) Plan with the following camp infrastructure elements: road to the gas chamber, barrack where women and children undressed before entering the gas chamber, eastern part of the camp (13) Plan of the camp – localisation of part of Camp II and the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”; (14) Plan of the camp – localisation of the infrastructure of Camp IV; (15) Plan of the camp (Nos.1-3) – localisation of the results of the archaeological research between the years 2001 – 2009; (16) Plan of the camp with the results of the archaeological research conducted on the site of the former German extermination centre in Sobibór between the years 2000 – 2001; (17) Plan of the camp with the results of the archaeological research conducted between the years 2001 – 2010, Marek Bem, Grzegorz Fajge, Włodawa 2010.


Prologue

Many times, in different parts of the camp, there have been found human bone remains, as well as other objects which were, most probably, of “camp” origin. Meanwhile, different individual persons and groups have put forward their designs for more ways of commemorating the camp, among others by building a paved remembrance path (running in proximity to the museum building, towards the monument and the mound). For these two reasons, at one point it was decided that there was great need to conduct detailed archaeological research into the area of the former camp. Rabbi Schudrich, who was visiting Bełżec to inspect the research work in Bełżec as a representative of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, pointed out in his report that no human remains are to be disturbed during the excavation work conducted in the area of former death camps and it is unacceptable for visitors to walk over the mass graves. This attitude has affected the plan to carry out exploratory archaeological research in the area of the former extermination centre in Sobibór which was unanimously approved at the meeting of the Council of the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District Museum on 18th May 2000. The research work had to be accelerated due to the need for extensive renovation of the casing of the mound and its surroundings that was scheduled for the Autumn of 2000, which meant bringing heavy building equipment. At the request of ROPWiM [the Polish Board for the Protection of Monuments of Combat and Martyrdom], at the beginning of October, 2000, a research team from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń went, under the management of Professor Andrzej Kola, to Sobibór in order to gain some tentative knowledge about the present surface structures, to tentatively identify the camp borders and the location of particular objects, whose location had so far been presented only in a few prisoners’ accounts and sketches.

The rough situational plan drawn up in 1945, by the investigation commissions assumed the area of the former camp to be about 58 hectares. However, an analysis of the Luftwaffe air photos performed by the above-mentioned research team, based on the available documentation, proved that the total surface area of the camp, excluding the strip of guarded security (in the forest strip surrounding the camp) was a little more than 20 hectares.

The short-term stay of the research team in the October of 2000 was to be the preliminary stage for the planned future systematic investigations. These aim, above all, at the precise localisation of the mass graves, and identification of the area of


the former camp and its buildings, including the gas chamber. The trial soundings (with hand drills) took place in the areas selected on the basis of the analysis of the clusters of greenery and in the neighbourhood of the mound - the grave. The most important result of this reconnaissance research was the discovery, on both sides of the mound, in its proximity, and so in places not studied from this point of view before, of mass graves whose range was at that time not yet determined. A number of boreholes, however, did not reveal any traces of human remains. Under the mound was so-called virgin soil, which implies that, most probably, there was no grave there. What is more, the earth of the mound does not come from the graves, but was brought in from outside. The main aim of that one-week preliminary research (9th-14th October 2000) was to identify the area later to be archaeologically excavated, to determine the hectare network of the situational-altitude map of this area, as well as to highlight those areas where there might, perhaps, be the mass graves or other structures connected with the operation of the camp between 1942-43, and to carry out exploratory drilling there.

The archaeological team of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, under the management of Professor Andrzej Kola and Mieczysław Góra MA and in cooperation with the Polish Board for the Protection of Monuments of Combat and Martyrdom in Warsaw, continued their research in the area of the former extermination centre in Sobibór in two stages: 17th April - 9th August, and 19th April - 13th October, 2001. All the subsequent excavations (in cooperation with: “Discovery Channel”, a German geophysical company “Büro für Geophysik Lorenz” from Berlin, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev from Israel, Worley Parsons Komex from Canada, the University of Hartford from the USA, the Yad Vashem Institute from Israel, the Foundation for Polish-German Reconciliation) of the Museum of the ŁęczyńskoWłodawskie Lake District took place in the years: 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. Since 2011, it is the Foundation for “Polish-German Reconciliation” in Warsaw that has been coordinating the excavation research on the site of the former German extermination centre in Sobibór. In agreeing to implement the plans (elaborated on by the International Steering Committee, i.e. Poland, Holland, Israel and Slovakia) to extend the Sobibór Museum site, as well as the Sobibór Memorial Site, the Foundation has recognised both archaeological research expeditions as its priority activities. Therefore, the Spring and Autumn excavations should be treated as being groundbreaking, as their range and effects have unambiguously shown what a great role archaeology has already played in uncovering the history of the Sobibór camp.

An archaeologist from Israel has been a member of the Polish archaeological

team since 2007. His name is Yoram Haimi. He lives in Israel, has a wife and four lovely children. The history of his family is directly connected with the Holocaust and Sobibór. Four years ago, he decided to go to Yad Vashem to try to find some information about his uncles - his mother’s brothers, who were murdered during World War II. They lived in France and his mother lived in Morocco. His uncles were


Moroccan who had been born in Casablanca. Every time he talked to his mother about them, she was not able to tell him anything about them as, back then, she had been in her early childhood. She only used to say that the Germans had taken away her brothers. Nothing else. Thus, one day, Yoram went to Yad Vashem to search through their files. He found there a list of the ‘resettled’ (the list of all the transports) from France to Poland. He found his uncles’ names on transport list No. 53. The transport had ended up in Sobibór. Thereafter, he tried to find more information about them. He knew they used to be photographers, who had had their studio in Paris, and that they used to send letters to Yorama’s grandmother and mother in Morocco. It is his grandmother who received those letters. He also found out another surname - Benzaken. Subsequently, he asked his mother for some more information about the Benzaken family. It turned out that the name kept repeating itself - Freba Benzaken. Yorama’s uncles were called Morris Benzaken and Jacob Benzken, Yorama’s mother did not know who Freba used to be.

He started to ask around after his family. He found out that his grandfather, Samuel Benzaken, had married Freba, they had two children: Morris and Jacob, and that they moved to Paris in the 1930’s. It is their grandfather that bought the studio for them. What is more, they started to work with their mother in Paris. After learning this, Yoram decided to find some information about Sobibór. He quickly noticed that whatever work he consulted in a any place, there was nothing that could be of value to him. What could be found, he realized, was very sketchy and general, and seemingly interposed by way of the “copy - insert” method, as most authors had put to paper the same set of facts. Therefore, he decided to go to Sobibór. One day he came to Poland with a group of Israeli youth. He had no idea what to expect. He just came to Włodawa. This is how we met. As it turned out, we quickly found a common language with each other. We started talking about the history of the camp and soon we began to cooperate. At first, it seemed a kind of dream, a completely crazy idea. But it worked. We developed a cooperation with Wojciech Mazurek, whom I had known for many years. He is a very reliable and meticulous archaeologist with long experience. In the October of 2007, we commenced archaeological research in the area of the Sobibór camp. Although we worked for a very short time, we found many very interesting artefacts. We combined our research with the archaeological excavations which had taken place in 2001. Professor Andrzej Kola was in charge. Basing our analysis on the professor’s study, we tried to determine the location of the gas chamber. That was the main target of our research, and we achieved certain results. Next, in the July of 2008, a group of geophysicists from Canada and the University of Hartford came to Sobibór. Together, we made a satellite map of the camp. The American and Canadian team investigated part of Camp III area by means of the most up-to-date geophysical equipment. We also collected the GPS way-points of the whole of the camp. These proceedings were extremely important because now we can verify this information with the archaeological research results and the preliminary analysis of the air photos from 1940 and 1944. We managed to discover


a few areas where, possibly, human remains can be found. Yoram Haimi is proud of this excavation work. He has taken part in all the Sobibór archaeological expeditions since 2007. He has always emphasised that he conducts this archaeological research, not only for the sake of the studies themselves or the scientific results, but for his own family: to commemorate them. He is sure that, thanks to all this research work and its results, he will be able to help all those families who have so far had no knowledge about the family members who were taken to Sobibór.

(Marek Bem)


Wojciech Mazurek

The results of the archaeological research conducted on the site of the former Nazi-German extermination camp in Sobibór in the years 2001-2011

In 1993, I attended the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the armed revolt by the prisoners of the Sobibór camp. Afterwards, as a long-standing archaeologist - an employee of the Museum in Chełm, and temporarily posted to the Museum in Włodawa to make a study into the archaeological monuments there, I was a careful observer of the changes that occurred and were occurring in the former death camp. In the Spring of 2001, as the Director of the Chełm Museum, I went to Sobibór to meet with the research team from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. At that time, they were carrying out exploratory archaeological excavations in the area of the Memorial Mound of Ashes, using a geological drill bit. I had my first direct professional contact with the site of the former German extermination centre in Sobibór in 2004, after Marek Bem (the then Director of the Włodawa and Sobibór Museum) had invited me to join a team of German geophysicists. Their company, hired and sponsored by a TV crew from Los Angeles who were shooting a documentary film for “Discovery Channel”, was planning to undertake non-invasive geophysical research on the site of the former camp.

By the end of the 20th century, no archaeological research had ever been conducted or, if there had been any, no results have been preserved. Systematic studies were commenced in the years 2000-2001 by a team from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, with Professor Andrzej Kola in charge (2000, 2001). The team made use of a reconnaissance method, previously applied in the research work into the area of the former camp in Bełżec. This method involved making a network of boreholes on the basis of a 5 x 5 m grid, with its density measuring up to 2,5 x 2,5 m, in the places of located anthropogenic anomalies. This exploration, planned to be continued later, was finished after a few exploratory excavations were made, where immobile objects A-E were revealed.

In 2004, at the request of the Museum in Włodawa, the company “SUB TERRA” Badania Archeologiczne, mgr Wojciech Mazurek z siedzibą w Chełmie [“SUB


TERRA” Archaeological Research, Wojciech Mazurek MA, headquartered in Chełm], undertook archaeological excavation and non-invasive exploration. In the first season, it carried out, in cooperation with a German geophysical company “Büro für Geophysik” from Berlin, geophysical research in three areas of the camp. In 2007, cooperation was commenced with Israeli researchers (Yoram Haimi, consultation - Professor I. Gilead). This research project, in its first year, verified the magnetic anomalies located to the west of object E discovered in 2001. The results of this investigation showed that the anomalies had been formed as a result of the accumulation of items - the personal belongings of those killed - within a narrow passage (object F) running from building E in a north-westerly direction. A year later, in cooperation with the Worley-Parsons company from Canada, further geophysical research was conducted in the area between the asphalt paved lot dominated by the Monument, and object E, discovered in 2001.

In 2009, the researchers continued on a small scale, their excavation work in an area where, in 2008, geophysical research had registered small, albeit quite clear magnetic anomalies. These form a straight line running along the western edge of the asphalt paved lot where the Monument is located. The verification of these anomalies led to the discovery of three rows of post-holes running along the north-south axis, as well as a large number of portable artefacts. In 2010, excavation work on the site where these rows of post-holes had been found, was continued on a larger scale. As a result, a continuation of two parallel lines of post-holes for a length of about 80 metres, was documented. These lines ran along the western edge of the asphalt paved lot, in the north - towards the mass graves, in the south - turning slightly in a south-easterly direction. Both rows of post-holes ran at a distance of 155 cm from each other, in proximity to objects A, B and D that were discovered in 2001. Among the 126 immobile objects that were catalogued in 2010, was one composed of a medium-sized collection of iron artefacts, mostly blacksmith’s waste (object 75).

The remaining objects are mainly small hollows formed during the operation and liquidation of the camp. Found within the layer of light grey forest humus (mainly next to the asphalt paved lot) were many artefacts left behind by the victims. These were Polish, French, Czechoslovak and Dutch coins, iron suitcase keys, iron scissors and numerous objects made of iron, copper, silver, rubber and glass. Among all these, an exceptional finding was that of a perfectly-preserved round silver pendant. It bears the name Hanna on one side, and the word God in Hebrew on the other. The excavation work scheduled for 2011 was originally meant to reconstruct the topography of Camp III, where the actual extermination of Jews had taken place. This was divided into two field studies, i.e. the Spring expedition, which finished its field work at the beginning of June, 2011, and the Autumn expedition, which was scheduled for the periods between mid-September and the end of October, 2011. However, the Autumn expedition had to be postponed till October-November. Although, at first, there were fears about possible unfavourable weather conditions,


the research work was completed as planned between 26th October - 26th November, 2011. During the field work carried out in the Spring of 2011, the central and southern parts of the so-called Camp III were identified. This research led, most probably, to the identification of a big part of Camp III, more than 1 hectare in size (approximately 10 175 m2). The total surface area of the open excavations was 31,5 ares. The area identified by means of a geological drill bit was about 7 ares. The main task of the leader of the Autumn research was to identify the route of the road leading to the gas chambers, the so-called “Himmelfahrtstrasse1, from its outermost southern trace uncovered during the Spring expedition, up to the point where it meets with Camp II. The supplementary aim was to determine the range, in a southerly direction, of object E, as well as its function.

Research in 20012

The foremost intention underlying the archaeological expedition undertaken at the Sobibór site by the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (led by Professor Andrzej Kola and carried out at the request of the Polish Board for the Protection 1 Himmelfahrtstrasse - the secured route of the victims heading towards the gas chambers. The SS

used to cynically call it the ”Road to Heaven”. It started in Lager II and ended right at the entrance to the gas chamber. On both sides, it was surrounded by barbed wire camouflaged by regularly exchanged fresh pine tree branches. This gave it the impression of being a forest path:

“[…] in Lager II, the Jews were “welcomed” and prepared for death. Here the victims undressed, their clothes were searched and sorted, and their documents destroyed in a special furnace. The victims took their final steps on a sandy road between two barbed wire fences interwoven with fir and pine tree branches. That was the Himmelfahrtstrasse, the “Road to Heaven”, as the Germans called it. The road led straight to the gas chambers […]”. (Tomasz Blatt”Sobibór. The Forgotten Revolt” .Włodawa 2003, p. 33.).

“[…] I arrived at Sobibór on 9th April, 1943. After disembarking from the train cars, the men immediately had to undress and then they headed towards camp III. The women went along the lane with pine trees planted on both sides. They went towards the barrack where they were told to undress. There, they had their hair cut […]”. (Selma Wijnberg’s account from “Sobibor. Martyrdom and Revolt”. New York 1980, s. 72.).

2 Compiled on the basis of Andrzej Kola, Badania archeologiczne terenu byłego obozu zagłady Żydów w Sobiborze, „Biuletyn Rady Ochrony Pamięci Walk i Męczeństwa” [Archaeological Research into the Area of the Former Extermination Camp in Sobibór, “Bulletin of the Polish Board for the Protection of Monuments of Combat and Martyrdom”] 2001, No. 4(21); Andrzej Kola, Sprawozdanie z archeologicznych badań rekonesansowych przeprowadzonych na terenie byłego obozu zagłady Żydów w Sobiborze w 2000 r., Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii [The Report on the Archaeological Reconnaissance Research Conducted on the Site of the Former Extermination Camp in Sobibór in 2000, the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń], Toruń 2000 (typescript); Dziennik (09 - 14. 10. 2000 r.) archeologicznych badań rekonesansowych przeprowadzonych na terenie byłego obozu zagłady Żydów w Sobiborze w 2000 r., SOBIBÓR - teren byłego Obozu Zagłady, Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika w Toruniu Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii, [The Register (9th - 14th Oct. 2000) of the Archaeological Reconnaissance Research Conducted on the Site of the Former Extermination Camp in Sobibór in 2000, SOBIBÓR - the Site of the Former Extermination Camp, the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń], Toruń 2000.


of Monuments of Combat and Martyrdom in Warsaw), was to localise its mass graves. The basic method followed was to make a systematic network search using a geological drill bit gridded upon the substratum of a geodetic map and divided by the hectare. The boreholes were generally located 5 m away from each other. However, in the areas of disturbances, the network was made more dense in order to make their range fuller. The same method had been applied in exploratory work undertaken within the area of the former German extermination camp in Bełżec. In total, 3805 boreholes were made within 9 hectares of the camp area. Where targets of interest were evident, i.e. in the places of the biggest disturbances of the natural system of geological layers, exploratory excavations were conducted, but only outside the graveyard area. In this way, the excavators had hoped to pinpoint the location of the gas chambers.

The reconnaissance made in the Autumn of 2000 made it possible to commence, beginning in the Spring of 2001, exploration by way of bore-holing. This was undertaken within the area of the mass graves, and localised around the Memorial Mound of Ashes, built in 1965 and renovated during the archaeological investigation of 2001. The Toruń expedition identified the location of seven mass graves. All of these graves, which are beneath the Mound and south of it (graves Nos. 3-6), were double in character: crematory in the upper layers, and, in the lower layers - skeletal - with the remains of human bodies in a state of adipose-wax. Two graves (Nos. 1 and 2), located west of the Memorial Mound, were crematory in character, which implies that they were built later, in the Summer of 1942, when the area of the camp was being extended and when the cremation of the corpses dug out of the pits had started. Out of all the discovered mass graves, the researchers had and still have the greatest difficulty in interpreting grave No. 7 located south of grave No. 4. Professor Andrzej Kola claims that the existence of indefinite transformations around this cremation grave implies that, perhaps, it was the place where the corpses were incinerated.

At the same time that the boreholes were made, excavation research was done in two areas beyond the mass graves where intensive disturbances in the ground were evident. In the area of the asphalt paved lot with its Monument of a Woman Prisoner with a Child in her Arms and the Obelisk symbolising the gas chambers, four immobile objects were found, most probably connected with Camp III. In the south-western corner of this yard, the researchers localised an earth object, about 4,5 x 4,5 m, at the level of the discovery, and 2,75 x 2,75 m in the underground part, marked as object A. In the fill of the rubble of this object down to 1 m, numerous personal belongings of the Sobibór victims were found. Among these were broken spectacles, perfume bottles, pieces of combs and hair clips, as well as iron objects such as a file, a bit, a chisel and a piece of a spade. In the underground part of this object, the investigators found a concentration of coal and many other iron artefacts (nails, screws, hooks, bars and bolts). In addition, building elements such as brick and cement fragments were identified. In all likelihood, this was the relic of the blacksmith’s workshop in Camp III.


Photo.52. Fig. 1 Location of mass graves (1-7) and relics of objects (A-E), uncovered by the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń expedition,

led by Professor Andrzej Kola. This was undertaken in the years 2000-2001. This projection by Rafał Ratajczak, is built upon

the basis of A. Kola’s 2001 publication

Additionally, the excavators discovered two other earth objects, marked B and D, in the north-western corner of the yard. Object B is a hollow which is difficult to interpret unanimously; 4 x 3,5 m in size and 1,3 m in depth. This is thought to have been a small barrack or rather a half- dugout. A large collection of things that had once belonged to the victims of the Sobibór camp, was found in this object, too. From the north, object B adjoined object D, 5,2 x 3,0 m in size, lowered in the ground to a depth of 1,5 m. This is also believed to have been a half-dugout. The fill of this object also contained a great number of things which had once belonged to the Sobibór camp victims, among other things, researchers found pieces of soap dishes, cigarette-holders, underwear buttons, razors, pocket knives, cut-throat razors and belt clasps. Also, a dozen or so rifle and machine gun cartridge cases were found. It is hard to determine the object’s original function in the camp infrastructure. However, the fact that it is positioned on the same line, on the north-south axis, as objects A and B, implies that their function was similar.


The researchers also managed to pinpoint, in proximity to the north-eastern corner of the asphalt paved lot, an object made up of concrete rings, 110 cm in diameter, whose bottom is 5 m lower than the water-bearing level. It is highly likely that water from this well had been used in cleaning the gas chambers. This, most probably, was located within the area of the current asphalt paved lot.

In regard to objects A, B and D, full exploration was used. The researchers used a different method in documenting object E, located about 70 m west of the asphalt paved lot. The object, 60 m long and precisely 6 m wide, was identified by means of a long longitudinal profile and a network of cross-section cuts. In doing so, the archaeologists applied alternate exploration, which left intact approximately half of the object for future excavations. The average depth of the object was about 70-80 cm (only in its northern part did it lower to the level of 1,2-1,3 m). It is this, the northern wall of an object, whose function Professor Andrzej Kola described as a barrack, that was seemingly touching a smaller rectangular barrack, 14 x4 m in size.

In the western part of this smaller, so-called barrack, there were found two large wooden beams located parallel to each other at a depth of about 90 cm. Each of these had on their surface, a regular row of holes, about 5-6 cm in diameter, where, originally, wooden pegs had been stuck. Two other wooden posts stood vertically next to these grade beams. These, the author of this research interpreted as the load-bearing posts of the barrack.

The fill of both barracks contained a great number of personal belongings, which makes them similar to the fills of objects A, B and D, located in the neighbourhood of the asphalt paved lot. The main difference is, however, that in the northern part of object E, there was a concentration of over 1800 deformed bullets which, most probably, had been shot into the ground. This concentration was interpreted in the 2001 research report as marking the place in the barrack where victims, perhaps ill or infirm, were executed while lying on the floor.

As a supplement to the exploratory studies and excavation research, the University of Toruń expedition managed to determine, to a great extent, the range of the camp’s exterior fence on the basis of the relics of barbed wire which had grown into individual trees.


Research in 20043

After a three-year break, while waiting for the archaeologists to return to the area of the former camp, the host of the camp area, i.e. the Museum of Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District in Włodawa, took the initiative to resume archaeological research. The Museum, in cooperation with the “Discovery Channel”, the German geophysical company “Büro für Geophysik Lorenz” from Berlin and the archaeological company “SUB TERRA Badania Archeologiczne” from Chełm, undertook the task of carrying out research into selected areas of the former camp in order to localise them more precisely. That was the preliminary stage of the project prepared by the Director of the Museum, Marek Bem, MA.

The scope of the research project scheduled for 2004 was defined as follows:- localisation of the relics of Camp IV, where captured Soviet ammunition was

planned to have been refurbished for the use of the German army; - verification of the anomalies identified by Professor Kola’s team by means of the

borehole method. These anomalies were discovered in the area south of object E. According to Andrzej Kola, they could have been somehow connected with the gas chambers;

- localisation of the so-called “Himmelfahrtstrasse” route, i.e. the ‘Ascension Way’, along which the victims had been force-marched towards the gas chambers;

- determination, on the basis of the planigraphy of the trees bearing traces of the barbed wire from the external border of the camp, which would unanimously mark out the area belonging to the Museum of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór.

All of the excavation work was filmed and financed by an American-British-German television crew, whose aim was to make a documentary about the Sobibór camp for the “Discovery Channel”. The intention of this documentary was to focus mainly on the results which can be achieved by using modern research methods. Above all, these were geophysical methods which are non-invasive in character, but provide archaeologists with a lot of valuable information in regard to the presence of various anomalies registered in the ground. It is the practical trial application of these methods that was one of the main aims of the 2004 research.

3 Wojciech Mazurek, Wyniki badań archeologicznych na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze koło Włodawy, woj. Lubelskie 2004 r. [The Results of the Archaeological Research on the Site of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór near Włodawa, Lublin Voivodeship, 2004], Chełm 2004 (typescript); Bernhard Lorenz, Gerd Plaumann, Informacja na temat badań geofizycznych na terenie byłego obozu w Sobiborze, [Information about Geophysical Research on the site of the Former Camp in Sobibór], Berlin 2004 (electronic version); Gavin Hodge, Marek Bem, Sobibór. Propozycja przeprowadzenia badań geomagnetycznych metodą nieinwazyjną [Sobibór. The Proposal to Conduct Geomagnetic Research by Means of the Non-invasive Method], Berlin/Włodawa 2004 (electronic version and typescript).


Non-invasive research methods

In the research project of 2004, in order to achieve the first three aims out of these four mentioned above, the archaeological team made use of two geophysical methods. These complimented each other. The geomagnetic method involved measuring the magnetic anomalies found down to a few metres below the ground surface. In undertaking this, the measurements were made with a light hand-held magnetometer. The other, the electromagnetic method, involved sending electromagnetic waves deep into the ground and measuring the impulses reflected against objects or interferences of the natural system of the earth layers. This time, the measurements were taken by means of a light cart, 1 x 1m. The device is called an EM61.

Photo.53. Fig. 2 Areas of the geophysical research conducted in 2004. Drawing - R. Ratajczak


In regard to the Camp IV area, only one method was used, i.e. the magnetic method. This was due to the limited access caused by the densely growing young trees and the extensive under-story. To fulfil the fourth aim of the expedition, i.e. searching for the trees exhibiting the relics of barbed wire, penetration of the forest and scrutiny of the trees were made by foot and by means of metal detectors.

All the excavation work was carried out (using the numerical system applied during Professor A. Kola’s research project: (from I to LXIII)) on the basis of the topographical map (1:1000) drawn in 1991 by Przedsiębiorstwo Produkcyjno-Eksportowe “Expol“ Spółka z o.o. w Lublinie [Production-Export Company “Expol”, Ltd, Lublin].

The research proceedings

This non-invasive archaeological research, based on geophysical practices, was conducted between 2-6th August, 2004. Prior to this, a few days before, the archaeologists started to search for remnants of the camp fence. Wojciech Mazurek, MA, was placed in charge of the whole project, while Gerd Plaumann and Meinrad Reibelt from Büro für Geophysik Lorenz in Berlin, took the geophysical measurements. Before the excavation work commenced, the project staff made out a schedule of archaeological research and established the measuring network of the localisation of the excavations in accordance with the geodetic system, as well as the network approved by Professor Andrzej Kola.

Initially, geomagnetic measurements were taken in order to ascertain the extent of Camp IV. For this purpose, an area of 5,000 m2 was marked off, on the basis of witnesses’ accounts, between Camp III and the chapel. Following standard practice of group geophysical work, the researchers applied a measuring network consisting of geophysical tapes spread along the west-east axis every 3 m from axis “0” (the line connecting junction points XIX and XXVI). The reading of the measurements took place along the appointed lines and on both of its sides, at a distance of 1 metre from the tape. Subsequent readings were made every 25 cm, which resulted in, altogether, 10,600 measurements of magnetic anomalies within one quarter of one hectare, and 21,200 readings within both quarters of one half-hectare. All the measurements were then processed by means of two programs into a map (cartogram) of the magnetic anomalies present within the researched area.

Geomagnetic and electromagnetic work was then carried out within the area of Camp III. More precisely, this research was undertaken to determine the continuation of object E discovered by Professor Kola’s team, as well as to the south of this continuation, within the area of the anomalies previously identified by bore-holing. In total, the allocated area measured 1 hectare. In the area which Professor Andrzej Kola’s expedition had examined in 2001, the researchers found a visible hollow covered by high sharp grass. Also, further to the south, the researchers discovered


numerous chaotic hollows, which were the remains, most probably, of the post-war treasure-hunt. What is more, two white enamelled metal mugs and a cylindrical concretion of concrete mortar with a large admixture of gravel were found on the surface of these hollows.

The last area of the 2004 geophysical research centred-upon a section of an unused forest path (probably corresponding with the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”), located west of the Museum building. In its proximity, Professor Kola’s expedition had found a few objects, the personal belongings of some of the Sobibór victims. During this research, a length of 5 metres was measured off from this axis, in a north-easterly direction, and 10 metres in a south-westerly direction, forming a strip 15 m wide and 70 m long, up to where the road turns east.

The excavators commenced their search for trees bearing the remains of barbed wire, which was necessary in outlining the camp’s external boundaries, on 27th July, 2004 (with the help of Aleksander Mazurek), and continued this alongside the geophysical measurements. At first, they verified almost all the trees uncovered by Professor Kola’ expedition in 2001. Next, the team looked for the southern border in an easterly direction and then marked the row of trees which has been preserved on the eastern side of the railway tracks, approximately at the level of the Forest District head office. The archaeological survey also covered the northern border, together with the area east of the railway line.

The results of the research

The area of Camp IV

The archaeological work undertaken to locate and ascertain the character of Camp IV, produced unexpectedly positive results. In the central part of the explored area, a huge magnetic anomaly (rectangular in shape, and with a side of about 18 m) was registered. Its axes turn at 45% towards north-west - south-east. This anomaly can be interpreted as being the relic of demolished underground bunkers, containing a considerable amount of steel re-bar reinforcement covered in concrete. However, this one building complex is much smaller than the nine barracks which, according to former Sobibór prisoners, had constituted Camp IV. It is likely that Camp IV consisted of not a complex of nine separate barracks, but of one brick object - a bunker with 9 separate rooms. This is implied not only by the results of this geophysical research, as well as the fact that its location overlaps with the one provided by former Sobibór prisoners, but also by the presence of a strange hollow which is convergent with this anomaly. This hollow contains a lot of concretion of weak concrete with a high content of coarse gravel (similar to the concretion found in the area of Camp III).


The excavators found in this hollow, two metal objects, which might have come from the time when the camp was operational. These were a tea spoon with a tea brewer and a piece of rack wagon. Apart from this clear anomaly, the excavation team came across, in the north-east quoin of the researched area, an equally clear, but many times smaller anomaly, which turned out to be a piece of metal wire wound around the stump of a felled tree. The remaining identified anomalies were small and they do not form any logical continuum or concentration. These then can be interpreted as the remains of past and present small metal objects (e.g. bottle caps, nails, etc.).

The area of Camp III - the gas chambers.

Within the area of the southern range of Camp III and, probably, the final section of the so-called “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, the research team examined an area one hectare in size, 150 m long and 60 m wide from the northern side and 70 m wide from the southern side. On the site of the archaeological work conducted by the University of Toruń expedition, where object E associated with the gas chambers had been located, no anomalies were found. This was not surprising, though, taking into account the fact that previous excavation work had resulted in the removal of all the objects from this area. However, on both sides of object E, large magnetic and electromagnetic anomalies were registered. On the western side, this plotted out as a regular rectangular, 18 x 9 m, with the longer side on a north-south axis. This object was tentatively interpreted as the room for the combustion engine producing the exhaust fumes that were pumped into the gas chambers.

On the eastern side, the anomalies were not that regular, though they slightly differed in shape from those on the western side. These anomalies are located parallel to object E. Making even a preliminary interpretation of these anomalies was at that stage of the archaeological program, an extremely difficult task. The researchers considered either the possibility that this anomaly is the trace of a room connected with the process of murdering people in the gas chambers, e.g. the so-called “barber-shop”, or it was a storage place for the valuables removed from the victims’ corpses (gold teeth or personal jewellery).

At a distance of about 60 m south of both anomalies located on both sides of object E, another concentration of magnetic field deformations was identified. Their shape was similar to that of a rectangular, with its longer axis convergent with object E and the remaining anomalies. This concentration measured 30 x 15 m. Whether this is still a continuation of object E, or a completely different object, it was difficult to state. However, this convergence of the orientation of the longer axes implied that this could have been the final section of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, where the so-called “barber-shop” building was located, in which the women destined for the gas chamber had their hair chopped.


Searching for the route of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”

As the continuation of the geophysical research in a southern direction from the perceived placement of the gas chambers had not produced the expected results (i.e. the discovery of anomalies in the form of a linear continuum outlining the route of this road), the researchers decided to verify a part of the presently unused forest path located west of the Museum building. The target was about 6 m wide and had on both of its sides, not-too-wide and not-too-deep grooves, perhaps used before as drainage ditches. In order to get a full picture of this section of the road, the researchers marked off a strip, 15 m wide and 70 m long, covering and slightly going beyond, the width of the road. This geophysical work led to the discovery of a large number of small anomalies, the signature being characteristic of objects of everyday use, e.g. spectacles, lipsticks, pocket knives, etc.

The same area had previously been penetrated by Professor Kola’s expedition. The excavators had managed to uncover individual mobile artefacts, but had failed to identify any anomalies that would be regularly convergent with the route of the road. It was difficult to unanimously exclude the possibility that this road was the initial section of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” ; it was also equally hard to confirm this hypothesis. An argument in favour of this theory was the presence, at the eastern end of this road, and located in a cluster of small acacia trees (exactly in the middle of it), another small-diameter wooden pole, purposefully cut at the ground level. It was concluded that this might have been an element of the entrance gate to the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”.

Explanatory comments on the process of determining the borders of the former Nazi-German extermination camp in Sobibór

The archaeological research conducted in 2001 and 2004 at the site of the former extermination centre in Sobibór targeted, among other things, at localising the trees bearing the traces of the barbed wire fences that were an element of this death camp. Later, the range of this archaeological work was expanded and verified by means of the comparative analysis of plans, sketches and accounts of former prisoners, staff members and “indirect witnesses” of the Sobibór camp. The researchers assumed that finding such traces would enable them to undertake the first attempts at outlining the alleged external border of the camp.

During the actual investigation (carried out at the end of July and at the beginning of August, 2004), the researchers found enough trees bearing the remains of barbed wire, to make it possible for them to mark off several lengths which, connected with each other and complemented with the lines marked off on the basis of the above-mentioned plans, allowed them to produce a clear outline of the camp external border. However, this theoretical plan is merely a conjecture of how archaeological


evidence could be convergent with the historical truth. The investigation resulted in finding and marking the trees located during the first research project conducted by the University of Toruń team. As well, it added to the amount of data in regard to the extermination centre, by finding additional pieces of barbed wire embedded in some other trees.

These pieces of barbed wire were found in different characteristic forms: as multiple coils which have grown into the bark of the tree, as single endings of barbed wire sticking out of the tree, as remains of barbed wire which have grown in the tree trunk so deep that they could only be located by means of a metal detector, or as remains of barbed wire stuck into the trunks of trees lying on the ground. The search for trees with the remains of barbed wire commenced from the trees located north of the Mound of Ashes commemorating the victims of the former extermination camp in Sobibór, and continued in a westerly, and then southerly direction. As a result, almost all the trees located in 2001, were found.

The researchers, proceeding along the southern fence in an easterly direction, discovered another fourteen trees in the area between the last tree found in 2001 and the southern quoin of the presently dried-out drainage ditch surrounding Camp I from the west. These fourteen trees are located on the continuation of the external border that was previously discovered, forming a slight deviation towards a south-easterly direction. At its eastern end, about 15-16 m south of the former drainage ditch, a single birch tree was found, which probably does not contain any remains of barbed wire (the metal detector did not register any). However, the tree has the characteristic injuries of the barbed wire previously wound around it.

Further to the east, however, there are no trees and most probably there were none when the camp was operational. Unfortunately, the search for the remains of the northern part of the fence proved fruitless. The only objects localised were two trees with no trace of barbed wire, but with anomalies in the form of twisted tree trunks, and one tree with the relics of barbed wire, not far from the three long ditches. Perhaps, originally, there was an ordinary fence erected there, made from posts and wire, as in the case of the southern fence.

In summing up the results of the search for the external fence of the camp, it has to be stressed that it led to the localisation of almost all of the southern part of the fence and to the discovery of two relics of the fence south of the railway tracks, in the northern part of the camp and its surroundings. Most probably, the northern part of the fence was in its western section, supported by trees growing nearby. Further to the east, on the other hand, it seems the fence was made from wooden boards and barbed wire entanglements, which prevented anyone from seeing what was happening inside Camp III.


The western section of the fence is clearly discernible, at times having three layers of entanglements, traces of which had already been discovered during the 2001 research4. On the basis of the results of the research presented above, I have drawn up a topographical plan of the area of the former German extermination centre. It is possible that the outlined camp borders might not, perhaps, cover part of Camp IV (northern Camp). This is so because no detailed topographical or archaeological analyses have been made here so far so as to answer this question. Therefore, the actual range of this part of the camp remains unknown. Preliminary inspection has implied that this area might be larger than the one marked on my plan of the former camp. In total, the borders of the former extermination centre in Sobibór outlined on my map amount to 31, 27 square hectares5.

(Marek Bem)

Photo 54. Borders of the former German extermination centre in Sobibór outlined on the basis of the archaeological research conducted between 2001-2004

4 Wojciech Mazurek, Wyniki badań archeologicznych na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze koło Włodawy, woj. lubelskie w 2004 roku, [The Results of the Archaeological Research Conducted in 2004 on the Site of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór Near Włodawa, Lublin Voivodeship], Chełm 2004.

5 Patrz także, Rozporządzenie Ministra Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego z dnia 10 lipca 2007 r. w sprawie określenia granic Pomnika Zagłady, na obszarze którego jest położone Muzeum Byłego Obozu Zagłady w Sobiborze oraz obszaru i granic jego strefy ochronnej. [cf. The Directive of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Dating from 10th July, 2007, on Determining the Borders of the Extermination Monument within the Area of the Museum of the Former Extermination Camp in Sobibór, as well as the Area and Borders of its Protective Zone].


Research in 20076

The research, however, came to a halt for three years due to a lack of financial resources. For this reason, the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel and the Museum of the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District in Włodawa developed a cooperative program aiming at resuming the archaeological research. Icchak Gilead and Yoram Haimi represented the Israeli group. As a result, archaeological work in the area of the former Nazi-German extermination camp in Sobibór was resumed at the request of the Museum of the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District in Włodawa, by SUB TERRA Badania Archeologiczne company from Chełm. Teresa Mazurek MA and Wojciech Mazurek MA were in charge of this research, which was conducted between the 6th and the 20th of October, 2007.

The scope of the research excavation scheduled for 2007 covered the following:- excavation work in the area where, in 2004, Professor Kola’s research team had

found relics of Camp IV and where they had verified, by means of the geophysical method, anomalies pinpointed by the borehole method, in the northern part of object E and south of this object. Additionally, it was planned to carry out, on a small scale, exploratory excavations on the site of the alleged route of the so-called “Himmelfahrtstrasse”.

- continuation of previous geophysical research, mainly on the site of Camp II, within the area of 5 hectares.

The financial resources, however, turned out to be not sufficient enough, so the scheduled research project had to be limited to a great extent. It was decided then that the excavation work would take place on the site where the magnetic anomalies had been found, west of the northern part of object E. This research aimed to verify the magnetic disruptions west of object E, which had been identified during the geophysical research of 2004. Additionally, to complete this excavation project, the researchers partially explored the piece of the western wall of object E which had previously been explored in 2001.

In order to tentatively identify the area north of object E, within excavation pit No. 2, an area of about 100 m2 was cleared of the forest bed. During the 2004 6 Wojciech Mazurek, Teresa Mazurek („SUB TERRA“ Badania Archeologiczne, Wojciech

Mazurek, 22-100 Chełm, ul. Szarych Szeregów 5a/ 26), Archeologiczne badania wykopaliskowe na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze w roku 2007. Sprawozdanie z archeologicznych badań wykopaliskowych o charakterze weryfikacyjnym badań geofizycznych z roku 2004 na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze, październik 2007, Chełm 2007 (maszynopis) [The Archaeological Excavation Conducted in 2007 in the Area of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Centre in Sobibór. The Report on the Archaeological Geophysical Verification Excavation Conducted in the Area of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór, October 2007, Chełm 2007 (typescript) ; Isaac Gilead, Yoram Haimi, Wojciech Mazurek, Excavating Nazi Extermination Centres, Negev/Chełm 2008 (electronic version); Yoram Haimi, The Archaeology of Death. The First Season of Excavations in the Sobibor Extermination Camp, Poland Oct. 2007, Negev 2007 (electronic version and typescript).


geophysical research, the area was found to be devoid of magnetic impulses. At first, the accepted methodology of earth-working assumed the use of

mechanical equipment in order to remove a layer of the forest bed and humus on the site of the excavation work. However, a considerable number of mobile artefacts found in the forest bed, forced the researchers to verify and to continue the excavation work by hand. They took off the humus layer by means of mechanical layers with the thickness of about 5 cm, until they reached either the sandy virgin soil or anthropogenic layers, especially the ceilings of immobile objects. Additionally, the collected earth was sieved through on sieves with two types of mesh-size: 2 mm and 5 mm. Due to this, the researchers managed to find even very small objects.


During the 2007 research project, an area of about two ares of land was explored, located right next to the western wall of object E in its central part (which had been discovered in 2001). Under a thin layer of the forest bed (layer 1), the researchers found numerous shallow hollows filled with black, burnt-up sand containing a large number of small pieces of charcoal (layer 2). The burnt-up wood came from thin tree branches which had a characteristic circular diameter. This layer also contained a lot of mobile artefacts in the form of the personal belongings of the camp victims. Among these were pieces of spectacles, dentures or cigarette cases, as well as elements of the camp fences, such as pieces of barbed wire, nails or iron wire staples.

Apart from this, the archaeologists unearthed rifle and machine gun cartridge cases, bullets and numerous shards of glass bottles and perfume containers. Some of the glass pieces bore inscriptions implying that they were Dutch. Among the finds were building remains in the form of concrete concretions and pieces of brick. Almost with no exception, these items were small or very small in size. This layer also contained some burnt and charred bone fragments which are, probably, human remains. Apart from these pieces of glassware, which might previously have been perfume containers, the excavators discovered a few pairs of scissors and a few knives.

Beneath layer 2, the researchers came across two shallow, parallel ditches filled with light-grey sand that did not contain any mobile artefacts. Both ditches were labelled as extensions of object F (the continuation of the nomenclature of the objects discovered during the research of 2001), and they ran along a south-east - north-west axis. Originally, their initial section was located in the western wall of object E. Their north-western end, about 14 m from object E, was poorly visible in the yellow-grey sand, which was the roof of the virgin soil yellow sand. The excavation work in 2001 had partly disturbed the most eastern part of object E. Each ditch was 70 cm in width and they were buried in the virgin soil up to 20 cm. Apart from the fill from layer 2, both ditches, especially in their eastern parts, were filled with layer 3. This is slightly disturbed light-grey sand. In the final conclusions of this research, object F was described as a narrow corridor. This started from the western wall of object E, at the level of about 25 m from its northern edge, and ran north-west.


Photo. 55. Fig. 3 Location of object F, discovered during the excavation work of 2007. Drawing - R. Ratajczak


In the space between objects E and F two post-holes were found. Also, the researchers came across the remains of tree roots, as well as the bottom parts of at least two wooden posts located by the western wall of object E and inside. It is likely that these posts were construction elements of objects E and F.

In the southern part of the excavation pit, the archaeologists discovered strange diggings, obviously not connected with the research of 2001. It is conjectured that these might have been made in the post-war period as a result of the illegal treasure-hunting carried out in this area. One of these digs contained a preserved larger piece of brick. Apart from this, no other objects were found in this layer.

North of object E, the archaeological team carried out some reconnaissance work. In doing this, they made a preliminary clearing of four quarter-ares, uncovering only about 5-10 cm of a thin forest bed. They found here traces of a mixture of sand with cortical waste (?) and a small number of mobile finds. The linear traces of deep coulters (?) imply that there had been attempts at obliterating these traces. Generally, the geophysical research of 2004 produced negative results here - no magnetic or electromagnetic disruptions were registered. It was quite different to the exploratory drill from 2001, which had uncovered anomalies on the border of both areas in three holes located next to each other.

The researchers were quite astonished when they discovered many mobile artefacts in the researched area. Almost all of them came from layer 2 - black, burnt-up sand with numerous concretions of charcoal. Pieces of glassware, glass bottles in particular (about 900), were prevalent. Some of these still bore inscriptions which imply that they came from Holland. Likewise, the iron finds were also very high in number (about 600). Among these, the most numerous were pieces of barbed wire - more than 300, nails - about 100, and a lot of iron wire and other small iron objects. Among the iron artefacts were metallic rings and hoops, which might come from the construction of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” fence. The possibility of other elements from this fence being deposited in this area, was confirmed by numerous concretions of charcoal coming from the burning of small branches, which had been used to camouflage the fence. What is more, the researchers found quite a considerable number of concrete concretions and pieces of brick. The former amounted in number to 100, the latter (small pieces in particular) - about 80.

The research team had difficulty in explaining the existence within layer 2, of burnt-white bone fragments, probably human-derived. Moreover, among the artefacts found, were numerous pieces of dentures and personal belongings, such as pieces of spectacle frames, fragments of and whole glass lenses, and glass cigar cases. Some barber’s tools were also found, such as iron scissors and pieces of metal au de cologne bottles and perfume containers and one piece of a shaving brush. After the research work was completed and the documentation compiled, the excavators


placed over the area, black plastic foil, and covered this with clean sand, hoping that it would be possible to resume this research in the years to come.

In summing up the 2007 excavation work, the researchers concluded that the magnetic anomalies identified in 2004 had been formed as a result of the presence of numerous iron artefacts (for example, pieces of barbed wire, clasps or nails). There were no traces of deeper diggings; and beneath a thin layer of humus, there were no other traces of the camp structure, apart from the relics of object F. Taking into account the results of the research conducted in 2001, 2004 and 2007, we can, with a high degree of certainty, state that object E is not the remains of the gas chambers.

This issue had been very problematic from the moment object E had been discovered. The researchers accepted another, more plausible, identification. They came to the belief that it either had been a building where prisoners undressed or that it was a sorting area of the items left by the victims. A very important discovery made during the archaeological research in 2007 was the localisation of a large collection of more than 2000 mobile artefacts. These were uncovered within a layer of black sand. However, it was difficult, on the basis of the analysis of the system of layers, to unanimously state whether this layer had found itself there just after the destruction of the camp, or whether it was a secondary layer, i.e. it had been moved to this place as a result of earth-work in the area of the former camp (e.g. from the area of mass graves perhaps?).

Research in 20087

In 2008, only non-invasive geophysical research was carried out in the area of the former German extermination camp. Again, it was conducted by “SUB TERRA” - Badania Archeologiczne from Chełm. Wojciech Mazurek MA and Yorama Haimi from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel, were in charge. The geophysical measurements and the chamber analysis of the results were performed by Worley-Parsons Komex, resources & energy company from Canada. Thanks to 7 WorleyParsons Resources and Energy, Wstępny raport dotyczący badań geofizycznych, GPS

i lotniczych fotografii wysokiej rozdzielczości. Były Sobiborski Obóz Zagłady, [A Preliminary Report on the Geophysical Research, GPS, and HD Air Photos. The Former Sobibór Extermination Camp], 9th September 2008 (chief geographer: Dr Philip Reeder, The University of South Florida, Geophysicists: Paul Bauman and Brad Hansen, WorleyParsons, Director of excavation work: Yoram Haimi, the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Director of the Sobibór Museum: Marek Bem, Director of the University of Hartford: Department of the Sobibór Project: Dr Richard Freund), Calgary 2008; Dr. Philip Reeder, Sprawozdanie z badań przeprowadzonych na obszarze byłego hitlerowskiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze, Dział Geografii Uniwersytet Południowej Florydy, [A Report on the Research Carried out on the Site of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór, Department of Geography of the University of South Florida], Tampa, Florida, USA 33620; Professor Richard Freund, Uwagi na temat badań geofizycznych w Sobiborze, [Comments on the Geophysical Research in Sobibór], Hartford University, 2008.


the cooperation between the Włodawa Museum and the University of Hartford in the United States, this company carried out the research free of charge. Representatives of the University of South Florida also participated as observers.

The scope of research

The original scope of the exploration work scheduled for 2008 was to make use of geophysical research, as well as excavation work. It was planned to be conducted on the site where, in 2004, relics of Camp IV had been found and on the site of the anomalies identified north and south of object E, found by Professor Kola’s team using the drilling method. Additionally, the researchers planned exploratory excavations in the area of the alleged route of the so-called “Himmelfahrtstrasse”. Once again, the financial resources proved inadequate, therefore the scope of the research had to be significantly reduced. It was decided that the geophysical research would be conducted in the open area, south of the Memorial Mound and in the forested area west of the asphalt paved lot surmounted with the Monument. Geophysical investigation was also carried out in the area of the excavation work of 2001 and 2007, around objects E and F, in order to obtain comparative material from the places where the cultural layer had been taken off.


During the research of 2008, primary cartographic work was carried out on the basis of the GPS system, by way of use of a Topcon GTS 4 Total Station and Trimble GeoXH devices with the help of an external Zephyr aerial. (The aerial was designed in such a way as to secure a proper range in a forested area or in proximity to buildings or other sources of diffused GPS signal).

The research was carried out in two areas of Camp III. One of these was located around the Memorial Mound and covered the whole area free of trees. The other covered the area west of the asphalt paved lot. Photographic sessions were held from two sites: within the area of the Memorial Mound, where the free-of-trees space ensured safe take-offs and landings of the archaeological balloon (which was used to take pictures), and from the meadow located within the area of the Museum building.

The free-of-trees area around the Memorial Mound was investigated thoroughly, and the research area south of the asphalt paved lot was laid out in a pattern of eight grid squares with sides of 20 m.


Photo. 56. Fig. 4 Areas where the geophysical research in 2008 was conducted. Drawing - R. Ratajczak


Non-invasive research methods

1. EM618 HD metal detector.2. EM389 conductometer. 3. GEM19 Overhauser GPS10 vertical magnetic gradient.4. Radar research to penetrate the ground11. 5. HD air photo taken at a low height12.

8 EM61 is an electromagnetic metal detector based on the discrimination of differences of time, designed especially to detect iron metals (iron and steel) and noble metals (copper, lead, gold, etc.) located at a shallow depth underground. EM61hh’s maximum detection range is up to 3,5 m under the ground surface. This device can localise metal objects as small as screws or nails at a shallow depth underground, as well as objects as big as a typical metal barrel at a maximum depth of 3,5 m. HD EM61 was used to conduct research into all the eight squares located west of the asphalt paved lot where the Monument is located. It can be stated that there are many metal objects buried in this place.

9 EM38 conductometer measures electrical conduction under the ground surface at a depth of about 0.8 m - 1,5 m. The data collected through an EM38 conductometer can in a special way identify buried metal. EM38 is particularly well adapted to identifying small pieces of metal located just under the ground surface. The device can also localise such small objects as nails. The data from the EM38, together with the data from the GeoXH GPS, was collected in the open space around the Memorial Mound. In this report, particularly interesting are the results of the research into the areas showing a high conduction. It is almost certain that all the areas marked off in this way imply that there is metal buried there. Some of these metal anomalies can be explained by the metal used in the construction of the monument, its pavement and kerbs, etc. However, most of the observed anomalies might be connected, with high probability, with the time when the camp was operational.

10 The magnetic Gradiometer measures changes in the gradient of the integral amperage of the Earth’s magnetic field. Magnetometric detectors can only detect ferromagnetic metals (iron and steel). When this device is used with an integrated GPS system, the accuracy of the nominal position is determined within a range of less than 5 m. The most visible anomalies in the open space around the Memorial Mound are connected with the traces containing the material which was used in the construction of the Monument and its pavements and kerbs, etc. Significant anomalies were also identified in the central-eastern part of the explored area at quite a large distance from the Monument. It cannot be excluded that this area of metal buried here might have something in common with the tracks used in the open-air crematoria.

11 Ground penetrating radar is a method in which high frequency electromagnetic delays are summed up. These are produced through the spreading out and the reflection of radar waves by way of anomalies in the explored area, which differ in the value of their dielectric constant from their surroundings. Individual objects, made from stone, cement, wood, plastic and metal, etc, also produce different reflections. The data was gathered on eight networks placed on the forested area of the former Camp III. It was gathered every 10 cm along lines spaced at 1 m intervals. Each grid square was cut up horizontally to get a visual plan of the georadar data at different depth levels beneath the surface of the ground. Finally, the results of the research into these squares at different depths were summed. In the open space around the monument, a few anomalies were identified around the objects marked off during the work in 2001 as being mass graves (A. Kola 2001).

12 To supplement the geophysical research, aerial photos were taken by means of meteorological balloons filled with helium. Two types of camera were used to take these photos. The digital photos were taken with a Canon PowerShot A650 IS camera with the definition of 12,1 mega-pixels, while the analogue pictures were taken as slides with a Rollei camera. The photos were taken at an altitude of about 20 m to about 400 m above ground. The vast majority of the photos were taken with the lens directed straight downwards, but some of them were taken at a certain angle. In total, around 350 photos were taken with the cameras attached to the balloons tethered to the ground.



In summing up the excavation work in 2008, the researchers involved came to the following conclusions:

a) The EM61 HD metal detector identified hundreds of small and medium-sized metal objects scattered within the area of networks from 1 to 8. Some of these metal remains buried in the ground seem to form clear geometric patterns, which implies that they could have been somehow connected with the camp’s former buildings, explosion debris fields or other elements of the camp infrastructure (the narrow-gauge railway, the fence, etc.) or other unknown sources.

b) The georadar investigation (visual pictures) of networks 1 and 8 implied the existence of foundations. Within the remaining six networks, the georadar signatures seemed to show the presence of a great amount of scattered rubble (the data gathered at a depth of about 1,75 m also suggests the existence of rubble at this level under networks 2, 3, 4 and 6).

c) The air photos taken from the meteorological balloons confirmed the border of the mass grave area located in the open field (this is manifested through a deeper shade of green of the flora). The air photos seem to have highlighted the Sobibór camp area against the surrounding forest through a gentle change in the height of the trees and their homogeneity.

d) The magnetic data of the gradient collected in the open field showed a certain number of anomalies coming from buried metal. One of these, particularly big, was uncovered at the junction of the location of two mass graves. This anomaly might imply the existence of the steel sleepers that had been used to incinerate the human remains.

e) The data on the conduction gathered in the open field by means of EM38 conductometer imply the existence of separate areas where some metal is buried. In most of the field, this metal is located at a depth of up to 0,8 m in a south-westerly, southerly and south-easterly direction from the Mound.

f) The information obtained through the geophysical exploration unanimously proved the necessity to conduct further excavation work. This should be concentrated particularly in those places where deep magnetic and electromagnetic anomalies had been identified. The clearest of these were the four deep anomalies located in one line along the north-south axis, on the western side of the asphalt paved lot where the Monument and the Obelisk are located.


Research in 200913

The scope of the research

The range of the research project in 2009 covered the following:

- conducting excavation studies on the site where, in 2004, alleged relics of Camp IV had been identified, so as to verify the geophysical results of the investigation carried out in 2004.

- conducting excavations on the site where, during the geophysical research in 2008, anomalies had been identified, especially in the neighbourhood of the asphalt paved lot where the Monument and the Obelisk are located.

As for the measuring network used in the geophysical research in 2008, in 2009, base-lines were set up along the south-west - north-east and south-east - north-west directions – within the area of, and surrounding the asphalt paved lot. Along these base-lines, seventeen excavation pits were allocated, 5 x 5 m or 2,5 x 5 m, totally in area, 3,75 ares. In the first stage of the exploration within these pits, a layer of sod was taken off and sieved. This enabled the researchers to find all the mobile artefacts bigger than the sieve mesh size (i.e. bigger than 4 mm). After taking off the sod and the poorly formed under-humus layer, the excavators reached the level of virgin yellow sand subsoil, against which the ceilings of immobile objects were visible. All of this was documented in the form of photographs and drawings.

Next, the researchers levelled the ceilings of these objects and began profile cuts, after which they set about exploring the objects (leaving one half of the object untouched). This type of exploration had been approved as the compromise between the methodology applied in Poland versus the Israeli methodology, in which, as Yorama Haimi claims, immobile objects are left entirely in situ. Then, the profile of the object was documented in the form of photos and drawings. When the exploration was completed, the whole area of the excavation work was filled-in and levelled by means of the sand sieved during the exploration of the pits and the objects.

13 Wojciech Mazurek, Teresa Mazurek, („SUB TERRA“ Badania Archeologiczne, Wojciech Mazurek MA, 22-100 Chełm, ul. Szarych Szeregów 5a/ 26), Archeologiczne badania wykopaliskowe na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze w roku 2009. Sprawozdanie z archeologicznych badań wykopaliskowych o charakterze weryfikacyjnym badań geofizycznych z roku 2008 na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze – październik/listopad 2009, Chełm 2009 (wersja elektroniczna i maszynopis) [Archaeological Excavation Research in the Area of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór in 2009. The Report on the Verification Excavation Research on the Site of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór - October/November 2009 (electronic version and typescript)] ; Yoram Haimi, The 2009 Season of Archaeological Excavations in the Sobibór Extermination Camp in Poland, Ben-Gurion University in the Negev, Yad Vashem 2009.



During the research of 2009 conducted within the aforementioned seventeen trenches, an area of 3,75 ares was explored, which was located in the area between the asphalt paved lot and object E. This investigation was carried out between the 19th of October, and the 2nd of November, 2009, by two archaeologists - Wojciech Mazurek and Yorama Haimi, in cooperation with Jerzy Matysiak, an employee of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Łódź.

The researchers found, in the neighbourhood of the test trenches, smaller and bigger immobile objects that have been interpreted as pits. These were filled with light grey and dark brown sand. However, no mobile artefacts were found. Therefore, it is hard to determine now when these objects came into being - during the time when the camp was operational or after the German murderers liquidated the camp. The number of mobile artefacts obtained from these excavations was small. This implies that the area between the present asphalt paved lot with objects A, B and D located in its proximity and objects E and F (explored in 2001 and 2007), was not intensively used. It cannot be excluded that these objects, at least to some extent, were the result of post-war illegal diggings made in search of valuables.

However, north-west of the corner of the asphalt paved lot and objects B and D, three rows of regular well preserved post-holes were discovered. They ran almost ideally along the axes of the excavations. The post-holes located to the north were, most probably, the bend of the fence towards the western direction. The biggest and deepest post-holes form the western line of the fence. The distance between these objects was about 3,75 to 4,75m. These objects, interpreted as being the remains of the fence posts, had a ceiling similar in size to a quadrangle or, less frequently, to an oval, while the profiles were most frequently similar to a trapezium. The post-holes which formed the central and eastern lines of the fence were similar in character. The most completely intact of these follow the central and the eastern lines of the fence. In the western line, traces of four posts are preserved, while in the northern part of the fence, there is only one. In the ceiling of several post-holes, the remains of concrete and barbed wire have been preserved. These characteristics confirm the interpretation of these objects as post-holes.

The analysis of the continuation of the relics of the fence in relation to the objects located by the asphalt paved lot implies the location of objects A, B and D along the discovered fence-line.An object, oval in plan (No. 12), was found between two of the post-holes which form the western line of the fence. After cleaning the ceiling of this object and from its fill, the excavators obtained numerous small pieces of bone (burnt white), which at times form a solid layer within the earth. It was hard to determine precisely how to interpret this object. It cannot be excluded that this might have been a small cremation grave (No 10).


Photo. 97. Fig. 5 Location of the test trenches from 2009. Drawing - R. Ratajczak


A great number of mobile artefacts were found in a poorly developed layer of sod and forest bed (layer 1) and in a horizon of light grey under-humus subsoil-sand (layer 2) that was above the ceilings of the post-holes and the other objects accompanying them. These were found particularly often in the excavations located right next to the asphalt paved lot, and were ascertained to be either personal belongings, like pieces of spectacles, dentures, cigarette cases, or pieces of the camp fences: pieces of barbed wire, nails or iron wire staples. Apart from this, the researchers came across rifle and machine gun cartridge cases and bullets and, quite extensively, shards of glass bottles and perfume containers. Among these, were glass fragments with inscriptions which imply that they came from Holland. The excavators also unearthed building remains in the form of concrete concretions and pieces of brick. They also found in this layer, bone fragments that were burnt white. Most probably, these are the remains of the Sobibór victims. Apart from the glassware, the researchers obtained a few pairs of scissors and a few combs.

Additionally, in the area called Camp IV, the walls of the pit in the north-western corner were uncovered. However, although the walls of this trench were exposed to a depth of about 1,5 m, the level of sandy virgin soil was not reached. It turned out that further exploration without any protection by means of boarding, was impossible. Since many pieces of concrete and brick were excavated from this trench, it can be assumed that in this site, which is an artificial lowering, a trench had been dug. This had probably been done before the liquidation of the camp, so as to bury camp building debris.

Summing up the archaeological research of 2009, it can be stated that the magnetic anomalies identified in 2008 and registered west of the asphalt paved lot and west of objects B and D, had been formed as a result of the construction of the fence between Camps II and III, the load-bearing elements of which were wooden posts. Most of the discovered relics of post-holes formed the projection of a fence-line along a north-south axis, which had a continuation towards the southern and the northern directions.

The contrast between the small number of mobile findings west of the discovered fence and east of these, imply a high level of activity on the site of the former camp, within the area of the present asphalt paved lot where the Monument and the Obelisk are located. This, in turn, might imply that here, relics of the gas chambers will be found.

Another important discovery was that of a large collection of mobile artefacts - more than 3000 objects. These were mainly found within the surface layer of sod and forest bed and the light grey under-humus horizon. Like in the case of the items found in 2007, it is difficult to determine whether this layer was formed just after the destruction of the camp or whether it was a secondary layer. There is a possibility that, during various earth works on the site of the former camp, especially those connected with the construction of the Memorial Site in 1965, this layer was moved here from a different place (e.g. from the area of the mass graves?).


Research in 201014

The archaeological excavation research in 2010 was carried out on the site of the former German extermination camp in Sobibór at the request of the Museum of the Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District in Włodawa, by “SUB TERRA”- Badania Archeologiczne in Chełm, between the 25th of September and the 3rd of October. Wojciech Mazurek MA was in charge of this research and he cooperated with archaeologist Yorama Haimi from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. Rafał Ratajczak from Włodawa was the documenter. A group of five volunteers from Israel joined this research team.

The scope of the research

The researchers used the same methodology of earth working as in the exploration missions in 2007 and 2009. Hence, initially, the trenches were explored by means of peeling away a layer of sod and sieving through the removed earth. This method enabled the researchers to find all the mobile artefacts bigger in size than the mesh of the sieve, i.e. 4 mm. After the removal of the sod and the poorly developed under-humus layer, they reached the level of virgin, yellow sand subsoil, against which the ceilings of immobile objects were clearly visible. All of these were documented in the form of drawings and photographs. After levelling out the ceilings of these objects, the researchers made half-profile cuts and set about exploring the objects, leaving the other half-profile for future verifying research.


The archaeological excavations carried out in 2010 were the continuation of the previous research of 2004 and 2007-2009. As a result, an area of 6,5 ares was explored, located north and south of the rows of post-holes discovered in 2009.

14 Wojciech Mazurek, Teresa Mazurek, Wyniki archeologicznych badań na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze w roku 2010.. Sprawozdanie z archeologicznych badań wykopaliskowych przeprowadzonych na granicy obozów II i III oraz nadzorów prac ziemnych przy budowie kanalizacji sanitarnej na terenie byłego niemieckiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze – wrzesień/październik 2010, [The Results of the Archaeological Research on the Site of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór in 2010. The Report on the Archaeological Excavation Work Conducted within the Border of Camps II and III, as well as the Supervision of the Earth Works Accompanying the Construction of the Sanitary Sewage System on the Site of the Former German Extermination Camp in Sobibór - September/October 2010] „Sub Terra“ - Badania archeologiczne, Wojciech Mazurek MA, 22-100 Chełm, ul. Szarych Szeregów 5a/ 26, Chełm 2010 (typescript and electronic version).


Photo. 58. Fig. 6 Location of the excavations conducted in 2010, with a visible double line of post-holes running along the north-south axis, along the western edge of the asphalt

paved lot where the Monument is located. Drawing - R. Ratajczak


The vast majority of the 121 discovered immobile objects were the relics of post-holes forming two parallel fence-lines. The lines run along a north-south axis, along the western edge of the asphalt paved lot where the Monument and the Obelisk are located. Both post-hole lines run parallel to each other at a distance of about 1,75 m away from each other. The excavators did not manage to uncover the outermost objects, which were the remains of posts. It is certain, though, that both lines of post-holes (with characteristic rectangular-shaped ceilings and trapezium-shaped cross-sectional profiles) continued in both directions, i.e. northern and southern.

Apart from this, the researchers discovered and examined many small objects, most probably the remains of the post-war diggings by the treasure hunters or those which had been formed as a result of the construction of the memorial site in the 1960’s. A slightly bigger object (No. 75) is adjacent to the western edge of the asphalt paved lot. It is oval in plan and trapezium-like in cross section, 2,0 m long and over 1,0 m wide. In the fill of this object (black sand) the excavators found a large amount of locksmith’s waste. Perhaps the object had had something in common with the assembly of the narrow-gauge railway line. The remaining objects are either the stumps of old trees or small hollows filled with light grey or yellow sand. Most probably they had been formed during the post-war construction of the asphalt paved lot, where, in 1965, the Monument of a Woman Prisoner with a Child in her Arms and the Obelisk were unveiled.

The excavators also found, in the area of the asphalt paved lot, numerous mobile artefacts, which used to be the personal belongings of the Sobibór victims. These were pieces of jewellery, as well as things of everyday use, like combs, toothbrushes and cigarette cases. Besides these, the researchers found pieces of building materials, such as barbed wire and fragments of concrete or brick. Absolutely the most astonishing find was a silver pendant with the Polish inscription “Hanna” on the face side and the Hebrew word “GOD” on the reverse (preserved in a perfect state). Other found items of special value were the pieces of dental work. During the war, Sonderkommando prisoners-labourers had had to remove these from the corpses of the gas chamber victims.

During this excavation project, the researchers also supervised the earth work connected with the construction of the sanitary sewage system to be built in proximity to the former camp commandant’s house. As a result of this supervision, they found the brick vaults of the cellars, whose iron bars had been cut off. These bars are most probably the relics of Camp I infrastructure. The excavators also found, in the fills of the house foundations, a few pieces of glassware which apparently come from a chemist’s shop. Among these, were two small bottles which had been produced by the “KLAWE” company in Warsaw. This implies that nearby, perhaps, there used to be a clinic for the German camp personnel.


Research in 2011 (Spring)15

The archaeological excavations in the Spring of 2011 were carried out on the site of the former Nazi-German extermination camp in Sobibór near Włodawa, at the request of the Steering Committee, whose aim is to design a new project meant to commemorate the Holocaust victims of Sobibór. Four countries constitute the Committee: Holland, Israel, Poland and Slovakia. All of these countries financed, in cooperation with the Foundation for “Polish-German Reconciliation” in Warsaw, all the excavation work. The Board of this Foundation held the Museum of Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District in Włodawa responsible for the coordination of the project. After all, it has to be borne in mind that the Museum, headquartered in a very small building, has served visitors to the former death camp for nearly two decades. The above-mentioned field expeditions were conducted by the company SUB TERRA Badania Archeologiczne z Chełma, ul. Szarych Szeregów 5a/26, 22-100 Chełm [Archaeological Research in Chełm, 5a Szarych Szeregów Street, Flat 26, 22-100 Chełm], following the contract which came into force on 15th April, 2011.

The excavation program scheduled for 2011 on the site of the former German extermination camp in Sobibór, was aimed at the reconstruction of the topography of Camp III. The field research was divided into two stages, i.e. the Spring expedition (18th April - 11th June), and the Autumn expedition, which lasted between the 25th of October to the 26th of November, 2011.


During the field studies in the Spring of 2011, the southern part of Lager III (Camp III) was identified. This is originally where the gas chamber was located. In this work, an area of over 1 hectare (about 10,175 square metres), was scrutinized. The total area of the open excavation pits was 31.5 ares. The area identified by means of geological drill sampling was about 7 ares.

As a result of this field work, the ceilings of 710 immobile archaeological objects were uncovered (subsequently numbered from 173 to 882). The vast majority of

15 Wojciech Mazurek, Podsumowanie realizacji programu badań archeologicznych na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego niemieckiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze, powiat włodawski, województwo lubelskie przewidzianych do realizacji w roku 2011,sezon wiosenny 15.04. – 15.06.2011 r., [The Summary of the Archaeological Research Program on the Site of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór, Włodawa District, Lublin Voivodeship Scheduled for 2011, the Spring Season - 15th April - 15th June, 2011] „SUB TERRA” Badania Archeologiczne, ul. Szarych Szeregów 5a/26, 22-100 Chełm, Chełm 2011 (typescript and electronic version); Yoram Haimi, Preliminary Report of Archaeological Excavations in the Sobibór Extermination Center, April 17, 2011 – June 5, 2011, Negev 2011 (electronic version); Marek Bem, Kontekst historyczny zakresu badań archeologicznych na terenie po byłym niemieckim ośrodku zagłady w Sobiborze, prowadzonych w 2011 roku. Komora gazowa – obóz III – lazaret, [The Historical Context of the Archaeological Research Conducted in 2011 at the Site of the Former German Extermination Centre in Sobibór. The Gas Chamber - Lager III - Lazaret], Włodawa 2011 (electronic version).


these were relics of post-holes and the traces of old tree roots. Most post-hole relics form linear patterns. These were interpreted as the camp inner fences. The excavation work uncovered a continuation of 2 rows of post-holes (discovered between 2008-2010). These are the remnants of two parallel lines of fence, which run along a north-south axis, beside the western edge of the asphalt paved lot where the Monument and the Obelisk are located. Both lines of those post-holes run parallel to each other at a distance of approximately 1.75 metres. Their range in a northerly direction was not identified. The outermost post-holes were situated at a distance of 20 metres south of the Memorial Mound.

In a southerly direction, on the other hand, both rows of post holes reach up to the ditch, about 30-50 cm wide, which is oriented in a south-west and north-east direction towards the south-eastern corner of the asphalt paved lot. Here they meet with the line of post-holes running parallel to this ditch at a distance of about 150 cm. Exactly 5 m south-east of this ditch, runs another ditch, ideally parallel to it, also revealing a row of post-holes on its outer side. In the inner space between these ditches, are rows of post-holes located just next to them, mostly at the level of the outer post-holes. This is the outermost south-westerly part of the original fence-line. Here, both ditches, together with the accompanying post-holes, turn south, beyond the area scheduled for the research of the Spring 2011. This pattern of two rows, together with the accompanying post-holes are interpreted as being the remains of the final section of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, which should have led straight to the gas chambers. Additionally, right next to the south-east corner of the asphalt paved lot surmounted with the Monument, three rows of small hollows were found. These could be the relics of the wooden steps leading up to the gas chambers.

In the area located south of the continuation of the alleged “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, a few rows of smaller post-holes were found. These connected the break in the south-eastern ditch with the end of the asphalt road running from the main road to the Mound. Tentatively, one might assume that these are the remnants of the barbers’ barrack which might have been built on a pile foundation structure (?).

North of the asphalt paved lot, not many immobile objects were found, but south of this, the excavation uncovered a collection of a few larger post-holes, which might have formed the line of entanglements around the camp inhabited by the Sonderkommando.

In the trenches between the asphalt paved lot and object E (uncovered in 2001), no relics of the camp infrastructure were found. This confirms the hypothesis underlying the research of 2009, which assumed the existence of an area free of buildings, probably covered by a young forest at that time.


Verification excavations of the anomalies in the boreholes, as well as geophysical research conducted to the south of object E, confirmed its continuation to be about 75 metres, in total. Its width is always 6 metres. Moreover, the side walls are sloping, with visible signs of wood boarding at times. At a distance of about 50 metres from the northern border of object E, from its western border up to its half-width, excavators found a 2-metre-wide sand embankment. It is possible to hypothesize that object E was a shooting range.

To the north of object E, a south-eastern quoin of an object similar to object E was found. On the basis of the boreholes that were drilled, its length in a western direction is estimated to be 15-20 metres, while its width is about 5–6 metres. In the fill of this object, a few small iron items and fragments of broken vodka bottles were found. A similar collection of artefacts comes from the fill of the part of object E which was investigated in 2011.

The outermost trenches and the dense borehole drilling, additionally uncovered (from the south and east), an area next to mass grave No 2. In this area, the excavators found a hollow gradually sloping from the south in a northerly direction, changing further to the north into grave No 2. In the fill of this hollow, there was light-grey sand with tiny particles of charcoal. However, no remains of burnt human bones were found.

South of grave No 7, in the trenches and by means of the boreholes that were drilled, the excavators discovered and identified the range of another mass grave. It is rectangular, about 25 m by 5 m in size. Its longer axis lies west-east. The object is about 190 - 210 cm deep. In its foot-wall, the excavators found 3 layers of burnt bones, with the bone thickness of 10-15 cm, interlaced with layers of clear, light grey sand.

The excavation work in the Spring of 2011 also provided the researchers with many new artefacts. The biggest concentration of these was found in a sizeable rubbish tip located in the south-east corner of hectare XVIII. In regard to the archaeological finds of mobile objects, most of these were women’s combs and hairpins, the broken glass of different bottles, pieces of barbed wire, iron nails, iron nipples and other iron items.


Research in 2011 (Autumn)16

As with the Spring excavations, this time the archaeological research was again carried out at the request of the Steering Committee, and the whole project was financed in coordination with the Foundation for “Polish-German Reconciliation” in Warsaw. Similarly, the Foundation Board turned to the Museum of Łęczyńsko-Włodawskie Lake District in Włodawa to coordinate all the excavation work. As before, the investigation was conducted by the firm SUB TERRA Badania Archeologiczne z Chełma, ul. Szarych Szeregów 5a/26, 22-100 Chełm [Archaeological Research in Chełm, 5a Szarych Szeregów Street, Flat 26, 22-100 Chełm].

The main task of the research leader during the “Autumn research”, was to ascertain the continuation of the road to the gas chambers (the so-called “Himmelfahrtstrasse”), from the outermost southern portion, which had been uncovered during the Spring expedition, to where it meets Camp II.

A supplementary aim was to determine the full outline of object E/2001, i.e. its range to the south of the research results in the Spring of 2011, as well as to understand its function. This has so far remained quite unclear, though the most plausible hypothesis forwarded by Andrzej Kola, and formulated in 2001, defined the object as the barrack which might have been used as the so-called Lazaret, i.e. the place where the SS shot the sick and the infirm.

In total, an area of 18 ares was investigated. Most immobile objects were partly explored and mostly sieved to get the smallest artefacts. The same technique was applied to the humus layers, the horizontal layers and the outside-of-the-object layers. Altogether in this investigation, 290 immobile objects were uncovered, most of which were the post-holes aligning the two ditches. It is assumed that these are probably traces of the high fence erected on both sides of the“Himmelfahrtstrasse”. Most of the mobile artefacts, however, are from outside the continuation of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”. They mostly come from the fill of object E and the first portions of Camp II.

16 Wojciech Mazurek, Podsumowanie realizacji programu badań archeologicznych na terenie byłego hitlerowskiego niemieckiego obozu zagłady w Sobiborze, powiat włodawski, województwo lubelskie przewidzianych do realizacji w roku 2011,sezon jesienny 26.10. – 26.11.2011 r., [The Summary of the Archaeological Research Program on the Site of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór, Włodawa District, Lublin Voivodeship Scheduled for 2011, the Autumn Season - 26th Oct. - 26th Nov., 2011] SUB TERRA” Badania Archeologiczne, ul. Szarych Szeregów 5a/26, 22-100 Chełm, Chełm 2011 (typescript and electronic version); Marek Bem, Niemiecki ośrodek zagłady w Sobiborze: „Himmelfahrtstrasse” – droga do komory gazowej oraz tzw. obiekt „E” (w odniesieniu do badań archeologicznych na terenie po byłym niemieckim ośrodku zagłady w Sobiborze. Ekspedycja „JESIEŃ 2011”. Rozpoznanie przebiegu Himmelfahrtstrasse i tak zwanego obiektu E), [The German Extermination Centre in Sobibór: „Himmelfahrtstrasse” - Road to the Gas Chamber and the so-called object “E” in Relation to the Archaeological Research into the Area of the Former German Extermination Centre in Sobibór. Expedition “AUTUMN 2011”. The Recognition of the Continuation of the Himmelfahrtstrasse and the so-called Object E] Włodawa 2011 (electronic version).


The results of the reasearch17

At first, the so-called “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, from the last turning before the gas chambers (the relics of which should be located under the asphalt paved lot where the Monument is located), runs in a southerly direction, but only for 5 metres. This is followed by another turning in a south-easterly direction at an approximately 30º angle. This length continues for 90 metres up to the next turning. After meeting with the post-war constructed “Remembrance Lane”18, this feature, also known as the “Heavenly Road” or the “Ascension Way”, makes another turning to the south-east, this time at a 15-20º angle, and runs for about 55-60 metres. The road then makes its last turning, after which the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” runs in a due easterly direction, reaching, after 40 metres, the gate of Camp II. If all these lengths are added up, the total sum equals to about a 240-metre distance.

At the southern end of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, the southern ditch (object 250) had two post-holes from the inner side. Moreover, at a distance of about 17 metres south of the east end of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, the excavators found a regularly rectangular hollow, about 6 m by 2 m in size and 0,5 m deep. This could be the relic of the so-called “Cash Office”, where the SS staff made the prisoners leave their valuables as a false deposit. South of this “Cash Office”, at least 8 post-holes were found. These ran in two rows at a distance of 2 metres parallel to each other. However, understanding the relationship between the end of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” and the fence-line, as well as the infrastructure of Camp II, requires further excavation research.

In the southern ditch of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, about 10-12 metres before the last turning, there is a 4-metre-wide gap, similar to the one in the final section of this road. This breach is directed towards a few rows of small post-holes running parallel to this road at a width of about 5 metres. This area, with two gaps in the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” fence, might have had something in common with the so-17 On the basis of the archaeological exploration between 2000-2011, at the site of the former Nazi-

German extermination camp in Sobibór, the first geodetic maps were drawn (1;2000 and 1:1000) of this area. The maps very precisely verify and describe the state of present-day knowledge of the topography of this area. (1) Map (1/G. Fajge) of the area of the former Nazi-German extermination camp in Sobibór (1:200), Firma Geodezyjno-Projektowa [Geodetic-Design] „GEPRO” s.c., Włodawa 2010; (2) Map (2/G. Fajge) of the area of the former Nazi-German extermination camp in Sobibór (1:200), Firma Geodezyjno-Projektowa „GEPRO” s.c., Włodawa 2010; (3) Map (4/G. Fajge), Map – the area of the former Nazi-German extermination camp in Sobibór. Map with the marked-off excavation work 2001 – 2011 and the inventory of the objects – 1951 (1:1000), Firma Geodezyjno-Projektowa „GEPRO” s.c., Włodawa 2011.

18 The “Remembrance Lane” built within the premises of the Museum of the Former Nazi-German Extermination Camp in Sobibór is a symbolic monument commemorating the last road of the prisoners who were heading towards the gas chamber. The Sobibór “Remembrance Lane” is to remind all the world that the Germans committed 300, 000 murders here. Its main aim is to show the individual fate of each of the anonymous victims. Along the lane were planted trees and stones with small plates were placed. With each of these trees and with each of these stones, from oblivion, the memory of each Sobibór victim is restored to the living.


called “Barbers’ Barracks”. Taking into account the fact that the recognition of the southern part of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” was carried out by means of the probe drilling method, it can be assumed that only a part of the continuation of the road was enclosed by a high fence. Also, we cannot exclude the existence of a greater number of similar breaks. In order to resolve this question, it is necessary to undertake further excavation research east of the northern continuation of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” to clarify the problem of the location of the “Barbers’ Barracks”.

At the crossroads of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” with the presently-existing “Remembrance Lane”, on the western side of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse”, the excavators found the remnants of a dirt road which, running from the south, turns at this point towards object E. Some traces of vehicles that had got bogged down in this area, during the time when this death camp existed, are evident. The road runs from that point in a north-westerly direction. It was there that a tiny piece of a bigger object was found (which is implied by the bores from 2001). It is about 1.5-1.6 metres deep. Its identity can only be determined through further excavation research. Such research seems necessary in view of the similarity of its ceiling to the fill of the object which turned out to be another cremation mass grave (No 8).

The investigation of object E/2001 uncovered another 25 metres of its continuity. This amounts to 100 metres in total. This object is exactly 6 m wide along its entire length. The walls are sloping, at times boarded with nowadays-decayed wood. At its southern end, object E was 8 m in width, for 4 m of its length. In its south-west quoin, the excavators found the remains of wooden stairs (dark brown streaks left over from the decayed stair- steps are clearly evident in the western profile of the object). At the primary utility level, the excavators found in this part of the object, numerous brass cartridge cases. In the eastern part, these were mainly rifle cartridge cases, while in the western part, the researchers found for the most part, machine gun cartridge cases. Most of these cases were strongly corroded, or rather were surrounded by farraginous hardpan. From the north, the wider part of object E is bordered, almost for its entire width, by a natural sand embankment, 1 m wide, with a passage of about 1 m in width from the eastern side. Similar embankments, regularly quadrangular, 3 m wide, up to the half mark of object E, were identified in the 50th metre (about 2 m wide) and in about the 25th metre on the western side of object E. It is possible to define, with high probability, that the function of object E was as a shooting range. At the present stage of the archaeological program, to confirm this hypothesis, it is necessary to launch a search for analogous objects in order to unambiguously determine its function. Roughly in its 50th metre of length, on the eastern side of object E, a pile of broken vodka bottles and Dutch bottles were excavated (object 574). At present, it is hard to say with certainty whether this was a sort of rubbish tip, or that it was a spot located near to the workplace of the German guards of Camp III who, during their ‘work’, were quite eager to resort to alcohol.

The above-presented conclusions imply that the Autumn excavation on the site of the extermination camp in Sobibór has provided almost a full set of data concerning the continuation and function of the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” and object E. However,


the list of the yet-unanswered questions is still long and their explanations can only be found through further excavation. Above all, it is necessary to fully understand the area of Camp III. There, apart from locating other possible mass graves, it is necessary to pinpoint and identify the gas chamber area. Taking into account that the “Himmelfahrtstrasse” extends in a northerly direction, it can be assumed that these should be located either beneath the asphalt paved lot where the Monuments are located or is east of it19.

19 Translation of “Archaeological Research Conducted on the Site of the Former German Extermination Centre in Sobibór in the Years 2000-2011” from Polish into English - N S-W and Jack Dunster:

Natalia Sarzyńska-Wójtowicz is a graduate of the Catholic University of Lublin (the English Department). She has also completed post-graduate studies at KUL (Tyflopedagogy - teaching English to visually impaired pupils and students). Since 1993, she has been working for NKJO (Teacher Training College) in Chełm. Her hobbies are French, Russian, history (World War II, the Holocaust in particular), multiculturalism.

Jack Dunster is an expatriate Canadian born in Montreal, Canada. He served in the army (the Canadian Army and the United Nations Military Forces in Egypt and Cyprus), then worked as a forester/geologist and an agronomist. In 1988, he came to Poland where he met his future wife. They have a daughter, Filomena. Since 1997, he has been working for NKJO (Teacher Training College) in Chełm. His interests are archaeology, history, flora, fauna, people, literature and above all, his dogs.


Photo 59. Fig. 7 The results of the excavation research conducted during the Spring and Autumn expeditions of 2011, compared with the mass graves and other objects discovered

during the previous exploration work, as well as the objects of the existing camp infrastructure reconstructed on the basis of archival maps. Drawing - R. Ratajczak