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

J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR 331
9.5. Registration of Deportees in the Aktion Reinhardt
Camps
The eastern Jews were sent to Sobibór and the other two camps
without transport lists, and yet the figures of the Höfle message are extremely
precise, down to single units. How can we explain this fact?
The Museum at Konin provides us with a significant indication concerning
this question, as far as the Chemno camp is concerned: 1013
“South of the grave a round aluminum badge with No. 1280 and
a hole for hanging the badge was found. According to the accounts
of the employed workers, in the period between 1962-1964 when the
cemetery was being tidied, 6 similar badges were found near the
‘wocawska’ grave. They were later handed over to the Town
Council in Dbie, which further handed them over to a newlyestablished
Museum in Chemno. Interesting is the fact that the
badges have the same diameter, while the numbers on most of them
form a sequence: 3276, 3277, 3378, 3280, 3281, 2521. In the
Chemno estate grounds, near the granary, a smaller badge with
number 1104 was found. It is unknown which group of prisoners had
to wear such badges. Significantly greater quantities (over 300) of
such numbered badges made of concrete were found during archeological
research in Beec; their function, however, has not been explained
there either. Perhaps an answer to this question lies in the
organization of labor camps for Jews.”
Andrzej Kola has, in fact, published three photographs showing various
cement disks with an imprinted number in the middle and a hole
near the upper edge. 1014 Photograph 117, which also show a metric ruler,
allows us to say that the diameter of these disks was about 5 centimeters,
and the six disks visible show the following sequence of numbers:
12262, 12816, 12707, 12285, 12099, and 12420. But photograph
115 shows a disk with a number over 66000 (possibly 66977, the lower
portion of the disk is missing). Kola tells us that these disks were found
in excavation 11e/98, i.e. in an area of 31.5 sqm of Building D. 1015 What
was the function of such disks?
What comes to mind is a “token” in receipt of clothes that were to be
disinfested; cement disks could have been attached to the clothes on
1013 “Chemno,” in: www.muzeum.com.pl/en/Chemno htm.
1014 A. Kola, op. cit. (note 299), photographs 115-117 on pp. 83f.
1015 Ibid., p. 54.