Discovery of an Escape Tunnel in Sobibor-Juniper Publishers
Archaeology & Anthropology- Juniper Publishers
Introduction
The archaeological excavations in the former
Nazi-extermination camp of Sobibor in eastern Poland are made possible
by a collaboration of four countries: Israel, Netherlands, Poland and
Slovakia. Main goal of this joint project is the realization of a
visitor centre and monument on the site. The still ongoing excavations,
upscaled since 2011, are carried out in order to make construction works
possible, and to reveal sensible traces, gain knowledge about the inner
structure of the camp and to secure personal items. The excavations
were carried out under supervision of Wojciech Mazurek MA (Sub Terra
Archaeological Research, Chełm, Poland), Yoram Haimi (representative of
Yad Vashem, Israel) and Ivar Schute (representative of the Dutch
Ministry of Welfare, since 2013).
Inner Structure of the Camp
The former Nazi-extermination camp of Sobibor, in
which around 200,000 Jewish people were killed in 1942-1943, consisted
of a few different Lagers, or camps. Alongside the still existing
railway tracks the so-called Vorlager was situated, where the SS-troops
had their quarters. Victims coming with trains, arrived at the ramp and
were forced to go to camp II. In these barracks their belongings and
clothes were taken by forced labourers, housing in camp I, behind the
Vorlager. Naked, the victims were forced into a long fenced path, the
Himmelfahrtstrasse, which ended in camp III, the area with gas chambers
and mass graves. The bodies had to be ‘processed’ by another group of
forced labourers, the Sonderkommando, who lived under terrible
conditions in one or two barracks inside camp III. At the 14th of
October of 1943 the labourers in camp
I revolted. About 300 of them escaped of which 50 survived the war. The
extermination camp was broken down by the Germans. Nowadays nothing
rests, only archaeological traces. During the excavations an earlier
escape tunnel was discovered, leading from the barrack of the
Sonderkommando outside the fences of camp III. This tunnel was partly
excavated after discovery in 2013 and later on, in 2016 [1,2].
The Results of the Excavations
In 2013 a barrack was found and excavated just east
of an asphalt square, under which, as became clear the next year, the
foundations of the gas chambers were still preserved. The barrack lies
within a fenced area and housed the members of the Sonderkommando within
camp III. A surprising discovery were the traces of an escape tunnel,
at a depth of about 1.60 m below the floor of the barrack. It leads in a
easterly direction under the fences that surrounded camp III. Partly it
was excavated in 2013 and 2016. The eastern end of the tunnel is still
visible in the forest as a small ditch, the result of collapsing or
destruction. Following this ditch it became clear the tunnel reaches
outside camp III, with a length of an estimated 20m. Due to the sandy
soil present in Sobibor, the Jewish prisoners who dug the escape channel
supported it with wooden beams. In the tunnel little personal items
were found; a 1.5m long metal rod was apparantly used to dig [3].
Historical References
Very few historical references stated that the
members of the Sonderkommando were killed after discovery of an escape
tunnel. As an example may serve the testimony of an unnamed girl from
Holland. At age seventeen this young woman
worked with a group of women prisoners knitting clothing. She
described the discovery of an escape tunnel by the Nazis prior
to its completion. In wake of the discovery of the tunnel, all the
prisoners of Camp III were summarily executed.
Comparison
In 2016 at the killing site of Ponar (nowadays Paneriai),
just outside Vilnius, the capital site of Lithuania another escape
tunnel was revealed using geophysicla techniques. Scientists
of The United States, Canada, Israel and Lithuania were able
to locate the 34 m long tunnel, which was already known from
historical records. Futhermore, the beginning of the tunnel was
already discovered in 2004. In Ponar about 100,000 people
were killed, 70,000 of them of Jewish origin. Also at this site the
Germans, towards the end of the war, tried to erase their traces.
Prisoners from the Stutthof camp (nowadays Poland) were
transported to Ponar to excavate the mass graves and and burn
the bodies. At night, these prisoners had to stay in one of the pits
used in the killings. It were these prisoners who dug the tunnel
in aboit three months under frightful circumstances. Forty of
them escaped on the 15th of April, 1944. Eleven of them survived
and gave testimony.
Another parallel (amongst the very few) is the dunnel dug
out of the Novogroduk ghetto, in 1943 a partly Jewish Polish
city, nowadays a city in Belarus: Navahradak. About 350 persons
escaped through the tunnel which appeared to have a length
of about 200 m, starting out of a barrack, comparable to the
Sobibor tunnel. Societal meaning Although the results of the Sobibor and Ponar researches
still have to be analyzed and published, it becomes clear that
these tunnel especially amongst the Jewish community have
a great societal meaning. They form a clear example of Jewish
resistance, under the most horrible circumstances one can
imagine. As Markas Zingeris, director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish
State Museum in Vilnius, stated after the geophysical mapping of
the Ponar tunnel: ‘It is a very important discovery, because this
is another proof of resistance of those who were about to die.’
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