SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 159
that the main way of extermination in Nazi death camps was by
gassing. That was also the case in Camp III in Sobibór, as is mentioned
in all the eye witness accounts of prisoners (from Camps I
and II) who survived. Is it possible that Object E is a relic of a gas
chamber?
At this stage of research it is impossible to give a simple answer.
The distance from this barrack to the closest mass grave is only
around 60 m and to the centre of the grave region – approx. 100 m.
This is the distance which the bodies of inmates were moved who
had been shot in the northern appendix of the barrack. The same
could have happened to the bodies from the gas chambers, if these
were located in this barrack. It has to be remembered that numerous
relics of camp buildings were found in the area of the mass graves,
which need further archaeological verification. Perhaps it is there
that relics of gas chambers can be unearthed. It seems – with our
current understanding – that the larger barrack, the relic of which –
so far not completely discovered – has been designated Object E, is
more likely to have been used as an undressing facility where the
victims’ clothing and equipment was sorted. This working hypothesis
needs to be verified through further excavations of the non-burial
structures of Camp III.”
The discovery of Object E poses three major problems to mainstream
Holocaust historians. First, all maps of Sobibór place the gas
chamber building in the southwestern part of camp III, which is exactly
where Object E is located. None of the other objects excavated were
found here, a fact that is consistent with the maps and models which all
concur that the gassing installation (including the shed with the gassing
engine) was the only building located in this part of the camp. 466 However,
the characteristics of Object E are absolutely incompatible with
those of the alleged second phase gas chamber building.
To begin with, the latter was supposedly constructed of bricks and/or
concrete, whereas Object E consists of the remains of two wooden bar-
466 The only other structure in the south-western part of camp III was supposedly an enclosed
yard. The haircutting barrack (or shed, as Schelvis calls it) situated just south of
camp III was clearly far too small to be identified as Object E, judging by the various
eyewitness maps of the camp. It seems likely, given the unanimous eyewitness evidence,
that the haircutting barrack was located not far from the southern border of camp III and
the alleged “gas chambers” in the area corresponding to the northern part of Hectare
XXXI, where drillings detected notable soil disruptions, viewed by Kola as a continuation
of the zone of disruptions containing Object E.