Holocaust Archaeologies: Approaches and Future Directions

363 Pages·2015·25.39 MB·English

by  Caroline Sturdy Colls (auth.)

Holocaust Archaeologies
Caroline Sturdy Colls
Holocaust
Archaeologies
Approaches and Future
Directions
Caroline Sturdy Colls
Forensic and Crime Science, Centre
of Archaeology
Staffordshire University
Stoke on Trent
Staffordshire
United Kingdom
ISBN 978-3-319-10640-3 ISBN 978-3-319-10641-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-10641-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014958882
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Preface
In 2007, whilst conducting research for my master’s proposal, I came across
a book which contained letters written by members of the Sonderkommando
in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Sonderkommando were a group of inmates who
were forced to dispose of the bodies of the victims killed by the Nazis in the
gas chambers. One letter by Salmen Gradowski, which had been buried in the
rubble of the camp, stated:
I have buried this among the ashes where people will certainly dig to find the traces
of millions of men who were exterminated.
I was struck by the faith that Salmen and others like him had placed in society
and how certain he was that the victims of the Holocaust would be identi-
fied. Yet, at that time, I had not heard of any cases where the mass graves of
the Holocaust had been excavated by archaeologists. Therefore, I decided to
research just how many attempts had been made to locate the victims and
sites of the Holocaust in the past. Having trained as a forensic archaeolo-
gist, I was shocked to discover that few investigations had been conducted,
despite the fact that well-established protocols have emerged in the past 25
years concerning the search for and recovery of victims of genocide. Some
investigations were carried out immediately after the Second World War by
doctors and lawyers but these surveys were mainly aimed at gathering evi-
dence to prosecute offenders. Thus, the fact that physical evidence existed
was confirmed, but detailed examinations of this evidence were not carried
out. It was not until the 1990s that several investigations were undertaken
by archaeologists and, in recent years, more and more searches for Holo-
caust sites are being carried out. The majority of investigations to date have
focused on excavating or coring at the sites in question and this has caused
significant problems due to the disturbance of human remains, something
which is strongly discouraged under Jewish Halacha Law. In the absence of a
suitable methodology, many Holocaust sites where the victims were predom-
inantly Jewish have not been surveyed and the rabbinical authorities have
been reluctant to grant permission for such work in light of the criticisms of
these investigations. At other sites, the association, by the public, of archaeol-
ogy with the search for human remains likely offers another explanation for
a degree of wariness and sometimes hostility when archaeological work has
been suggested.
The more I engaged with research in Holocaust archaeology, the more
I came to realise that it is also the variety of political, social, ethical and
v
vi Preface
religious sensitivities surrounding this period which have undoubtedly influ-
enced the number of investigations of the physical evidence that have been
conducted in the past. Seventy years may now have passed since the end of
the Second World War. Yet, whilst the Holocaust may be distant in terms of
time, these events exist between history and memory, and continue to have
considerable resonance in modern society. Excavation in particular may also
be seen as physically and metaphorically digging up painful memories of the
past and may bring to the fore particular aspects of the past that some people
would rather forget. So it is not as simple as Salmen Gradowski (cited above)
hoped to locate the evidence of the Nazis’ crimes; in fact it may be forbidden
to ‘dig to find the traces of millions of men’ due to religious stipulations and
the sensitivities surrounding this period.
However, because of the variety of novel techniques and approaches
now available to archaeologists, the inability to excavate should not inhibit
research. In fact, adopting a non-invasive approach to the investigation of
these sites opens up the possibility for much more detailed forms of inves-
tigation which can potentially locate an abundance of different evidence
types. This is providing that, when addressing Holocaust archaeology we, as
archaeologists, remember that we are not just dealing with the physical land-
scape; we have to consider the fact that landscapes have evolved over time
and sites have taken on new functions. We are also dealing with contested
spaces and memoryscapes where there will be conflicting opinions and mem-
ories of where and how events happened. Therefore, any attempts to examine
Holocaust sites require a methodology that accounts for these sensitivities.
It was to this end that I developed the Holocaust Landscapes Project. This
project began as research for my master’s and doctoral theses and contin-
ues as an active research project involving staff and students at Staffordshire
University, and several international partners. It is an interdisciplinary proj-
ect which involves the integration of documentary, cartographic and physical
evidence, and draws upon techniques from a variety of different disciplines.
This book is based heavily on this work and focuses on the lesson learnt in
the course of my own investigations at Treblinka extermination and labour
camps in Poland, Semlin Judenlager and Anhaltlager in Serbia, and the
camps and fortifications on the island of Alderney in the Channel Islands. I
also draw on information derived from other sites that I have visited or pro-
vided professional advice about in the course of my research, and the work
of colleagues working in this field. This book is a timely one as an increasing
number of investigations are being carried out by archaeologists and it seems
likely that more investigations will be carried out in the future. Its purpose
is to consider current approaches to, and possibilities for, the investigation
of Holocaust sites and to present novel ways in which investigations may
proceed in the future. In a sense, the book is a call to action to archaeologists
and a demonstration of potential to those who are custodians of Holocaust
sites. Although we may not always be able to ‘dig to find the traces of the
millions of men (and women)’ who were exterminated, by adopting a unique
approach to Holocaust archaeology, we can certainly find out more about the
lives and deaths of the victims, the experiences of those who bore witness
and the actions of those who perpetrated one of the most heinous crimes of
the twentieth century.
Acknowledgments
This book has been the culmination of many years’ work and so has been
directly and indirectly influenced by many people whom I would like to
thank. For assisting during my time at the University of Birmingham, special
thanks go to my PhD supervisors Emeritus Professor John Hunter and Dr
John Carman. Thanks are due to Dr Roger White who has acted as my advi-
sor throughout this research and to Barrie Simpson for introducing me to the
world of forensic archaeology. I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to
all of my colleagues and friends at Staffordshire University. Specifically, I
would like to thank Dr John Wheeler, Dr Andrew Jackson, Mr Dan Brearley,
Mr Julian Partridge, Dr Neil Lamont, Mandy Roberts, Christine Dover and
Professor John Dover from the Faculty of Sciences for their advice and guid-
ance. Thanks are also due to Sue Lawton and Mick Britton for their technical
expertise. Special thanks go to my colleagues Dean Northfield for his support
and participation in the fieldwork in Treblinka, and Dr Rachel Bolton-King
and Mr Tim Harris for their ongoing commitment to the work in Alderney.
I am very grateful to all of my students past and present, and my friends,
who have participated in the fieldwork as part of the Holocaust Landscapes
Project.
For their advice and expertise with regards to Holocaust archaeology and
memory studies, special thanks go to Professor Rob van der Laarse (Univer-
sity of Amsterdam), Professor Marek Jasinski (Norwegian University of Sci-
ence and Technology regarding Falstad and the Painful Heritage project), Dr
Francesco Mazzucchelli (University of Bologna), Dr Gilly Carr (University
of Cambridge regarding the Channel Islands), Emeritus Professor Richard
Wright (regarding his work in the Ukraine), Dr Marija Definis-Gojanović
(regarding the identification of human remains in Croatia), Dr Yoram
Haimi and Wojciech Mazurek (Sobibor Archaeological Project), Ruurd
Kok (RAAP), Professor Claudia Theune (University of Vienna regarding
Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen), Dr Adrian Cioflâncă (regarding work in
Romania) and Father Patrick Desbois (Yahad-In-Unum). Credits for individ-
ual images are cited in the text but special thanks are due to Guillaume Ribot,
Ivar Schute, Joanna Zasłona, Dr Tom Hill, Agnieszka Nieradko, Stefen Krae-
mer, ScanLAB Projects and Dr Marija Definis-Gojanović. I would like to
thank my good friend and colleague Ivar Schute for providing me with infor-
mation about his work in The Netherlands and at Bergen-Belsen, as well as
for his assistance during fieldwork at Treblinka. For introducing me to every-
one he knows in Poland (which is almost everyone!), for his endless support
vii
viii Acknowledgments
and translations, I would like to thank my good friend Jerzy Giebułtowski. I
would also like to thank Agata Wojtko for being a very patient and committed
Polish teacher.
For his advice on Halacha Law and his continued support, I would like
to extend a special thank you to the Chief Rabbi of Poland, Rabbi Michael
Schudrich and staff of the Rabbinical Commission on Jewish Cemeteries in
Warsaw, including Agnieszka Nieradko, Aleks Schwarz and Kasia Ober. For
additional advice on Jewish beliefs during my PhD research, I would like
to thank Marcus Roberts, Rabbi Gluck and Rabbi Elkin Levy. For granting
permission for the fieldwork at Treblinka and for putting their faith in me and
the project, I would like to thank Dr Edward Kopówka of the Muzeum Walki
I Męczeństwa w Treblince and Dr Andrzej Matuszewicz of the Muzeum
Regionalne w Siedlcach. The staff at both museums were instrumental in
ensuring that fieldwork ran smoothly. Special thanks are due to Joanna
Zasłona for her technical expertise during fieldwork at Treblinka, translations
and friendship. Research in Poland would also not have been possible without
the assistance of the Konserwator Zabytków w Siedlcach. For the research
relating to Alderney, I would like to extend my thanks to all of the staff and
members of Alderney Society and Museum, the States of Alderney and the
Alderney Wildlife Trust. Special thanks are due to Dr Trevor Davenport
and Barney Winder for their assistance during fieldwork. Sincere thanks are
due to Professor Eyal Weizman, Dr Susan Schuppli, Francesco Sebregondi,
Adjunct Professor Srdjan Jovanovic-Weiss, Srdjan Hercigonja and all of the
members of the Forensic Architecture/Living Death Camps research project
at Goldsmiths College, London for inviting me to be part of the research at
Semlin in Serbia. My sincerest thanks are extended to the communities and
individuals that I have met at all of the sites where I have undertaken my
fieldwork for their understanding, encouragement and support.
For providing me with continuous support and for facilitating the produc-
tion of various media projects, I would like to thank Lucy Vernall of the
Idea’s Lab, Birmingham. I am eternally grateful to all of the staff at Furneaux
and Edgar Productions, in particular Charles Furneaux, David Edgar and
Alex Nikolić-Dunlop and Ania Poullain-Majchrzak for producing Treblinka:
Inside Hitler’s Secret Death Camp and Treblinka: Hitler’s Killing Machine.
Thanks are also due to Jonathan Charles (formerly of the BBC) and Simon
Jacobs (Unique) for producing a Radio 4 documentary about my research at
Treblinka and for their keen interest in the project.
For the loan of equipment, thanks are due to former staff of Birmingham
Archaeology, IBM Vista, Leica Polska and Keele University. Staff at vari-
ous archives has assisted greatly with the research especially those at Yad
Vashem, USHMM, the Imperial War Museum, the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission, Jersey Archives, Island Archives (Guernsey), Priaulx
Library and the National Archives.
For their endless support, I would like to thank my family. I would like to
thank my dad for fostering my interest in history and archaeology (even the
bunkers!) and for debating/arguing many points in this book. To my sister
for assisting with the fieldwork and for keeping me calm! To my brother, for
Acknowledgments ix
assistance with some of the three-dimensional models. To my grandparents
and my uncle, for contributing to my travel funds. Lastly, to my mum for
‘keeping me grounded’! Thanks are also due to all of my friends who have
endured me discussing my work incessantly, and to Monty and Walter who
helped me at the end.
For his love, never-ending patience and support, I would like to thank my
husband Kevin Colls who has truly shared the trials and tribulations of this
research. Without his understanding and help, particularly with the fieldwork,
illustrations and proof-reading, my research would not have been possible.
Finally, I am eternally grateful to the many Holocaust survivors and their
relatives who have shared their experiences with me and who have helped
guide the search for evidence.
Contents
Part I Background
1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 3
1.1 Physical Evidence and the Holocaust ....................................... 3
1.2 A Unique Approach .................................................................. 6
1.3 Defining Holocaust Archaeology ............................................. 8
1.4 To Dig or Not to Dig … ........................................................... 9
1.5 Archaeologies of the Holocaust ................................................ 12
1.6 Traces of Memory ..................................................................... 14
1.7 After Archaeology .................................................................... 14
1.8 Holocaust Archaeologies: Approaches
and Future Directions ............................................................... 15
References .......................................................................................... 16
2 Context .............................................................................................. 19
2.1 Historical Background .............................................................. 19
2.2 Investigating Genocide ............................................................. 21
2.2.1 During World War II .................................................... 23
2.2.2 Early Investigations of Holocaust Sites ....................... 25
2.2.3 Early Attempts to Identify Holocaust Victims ............ 26
2.2.4 Holocaust Memorials .................................................... 27
2.2.5 The Development of Genocide Investigations ............. 29
2.2.6 Conflict Archaeology .................................................... 30
2.3 Holocaust Archaeology............................................................. 31
2.3.1 Scenarios ....................................................................... 31
2.3.2 Legal Investigations ...................................................... 31
2.3.3 Humanitarian Projects .................................................. 34
2.3.4 Commercial Archaeology ............................................. 40
2.3.5 Serendipitous Discoveries and Rescue Archaeology... 41
2.3.6 Making Comparisons .................................................... 42
2.4 Documenting Holocaust Sites .................................................. 43
2.5 Reflections ................................................................................. 45
References .......................................................................................... 46
xi