Sobibor - Holocaust Propaganda And Reality - Unity of Nobility ...

164 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
deportees in the course of a bath and delousing procedure at a transit
camp. 475
All in all, the team recovered “about 1,000 artifacts that do not seem
to be associated with gas chambers.” 474 Photographs are provided of a
cigarette case, seven hangers for security fencing, and a non-descript
excavation site where the possible remains of camp fences were discovered.
The latter is described as the most important feature unearthed. 476
Among the finds were also bullet cartridges and bullets deformed by
fire. 474
That the search for the elusive gas chambers in the end yielded a
negative result is clear from Gilead et al.’s discussion of Kola’s interpretation
of Object E: 477
“As mentioned above, the most important structure discovered
during the dig of Kola is Building E. Although Kola suggested that
this structure was the undressing barrack (Kola, 2001), in later reconstructions
it appears as the gas chamber. The Sobibór booklet
(Bem, 2006) includes a map labeled ‘Sobibór Death Camp Memorial
Map.’ It consists of a combination of the present day structures
and monuments of the site, with the suggested reconstruction as
their background (Fig. 19). The ‘Memorial Map’ identifies the Sobibór
gas chambers with Building E, which in Kola’s opinion served
as undressing complex. Rutherford (2002) follows this map in placing
the gas chambers in the same place, although the structure he
reconstructs is different in shape. It is obvious that the location of
the gas chambers is a complex issue that has to be solved, an important
objective for future archaeological research at Sobibór.”
That the team itself, at least at the time of their excavations, did not
believe Object E to be the gas chambers, is apparent from the fact that
they set out to find the building in the area west of this object. The
statement that the location of the gas chambers is an issue that remains
to be solved is of course nothing but an admission that Object E can not
be positively identified as the alleged gas chambers and that no other
possible remains of them had been discovered by the time of the ar-
475
476
477
Cf. the testimony of transit camp inmate Galina K. quoted by Janet Anschutz, Irmtraud
Heike, “Medizinische Versorgung von Zwangsarbeitern in Hannover: Forschung und
Zeitzeugenberichte zum Gesundheitswesen,” in: Gunter Siedburger, Andreas Frewer,
Zwangsarbeit und Gesundheitswesen im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Einsatz und Versorgung in
Norddeutschland, Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, Zürich, New York 2006, p. 52.
I. Gilead, Y. Haimi, W. Mazurek, op. cit. (note 293), p. 28.
Ibid., pp. 33f.