SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 109
5.1.3. Kola’s Archeological Research at Sobibór 2000-
2001
The first ever study 298 of the former Sobibór camp site by archeological
means was undertaken in 2000-2001 by a team led by Professor
Andrzej Kola of the University of Toru�, who had previously carried
out excavations at Be��ec. 299 While the Sobibór excavation was reported
on by a number of newspapers in late 2001, no translation into any
western language has yet been made available of the brief research report
which Kola published that same year in the journal Przesz�o�� i
Pami�� (“Past and Memory”) published by the Council for the Protection
of Memory of Combat and Martyrdom. 300 In the present chapter
Kola’s published results will be critically analyzed and compared to the
established historiographic picture of the camp.
Regarding the purpose of the study Kola states: 301
“The planimetric structure of the camp’s buildings and the mass
graves’ locations are currently indiscernible as a result of deliberate
destruction, demolition, and removing of the evidence of its infrastructure
by the Germans in 1943, following the well-known mass
breakout of prisoners on the 14 th October of the same year. The aim
of the archeological excavations is to recreate this plan as the basis
of a fitting and dignified memorial to the victims of the Holocaust,
including an adequate project of commemoration being formulated.
It is also important to obtain authentic artifacts belonging to the
Jews who were brought to Sobibór from all over Europe for the
branch of the ��czna-W�odawa Lakeland Museum located in Sobibór
– objects bearing witness to the martyrdom of the victims or
linked to the organization of the genocide.”
298 Historian Martin Gilbert, who visited Sobibór in the summer of 1996, writes in his travel
journal that at the site of the former camp III, “there is a patch of sand where men have
recently been digging, trying to find the rails that were used for the crematorium pyres
where the bodies had been burned. This work is being done by the regional museum at
W�odawa.” The details of this archeological activity are wrapped in obscurity, however,
since it is not acknowledged in the Sobibór literature, not even in Kola’s 2001 article, see
note 300; Martin Gilbert, Holocaust Journey, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London 1997, p.
250.
299 Andrzej Kola, Be��ec. The Nazi Camp for Jews in the Light of Archaeological Sources.
Excavations 1997-1999, The Council for the Protection of Memory of Combat and Martyrdom/United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Warsaw-Washington 2000.
300 Andrzej Kola, “Badania archeologiczne terenu by�ego obózu zag�ady �ydów w Sobiborze,”
in: Przesz�o�� i Pami��. Biuletyn Rady Ochrony Pami�ci Walk i M�cze�stwa,
No. 4(21) 2001, pp. 115-122.
301 Ibid., p. 115.