Type of place

Information about the crime

The SS-Sonderkommando Sobibór extermination camp operated from spring 1942 to autumn 1943 as one of three camps for immediate extermination under Operation Reinhardt, the German genocidal operation aimed at murdering all Jews living in the General Government and the Białystok district. By 14 October 1943, the day the uprising broke out, approximately 180,000 Polish citizens from the Second Polish Republic, the Netherlands, Slovakia, the USSR, France, Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic had been murdered in Sobibór. In late autumn 1942, the Germans decided to open the graves and begin burning the bodies in field crematoria constructed from railway sleepers. Camp prisoners crushed the cremated bones in mills and poured the remains back into the graves.

Between 2000 and 2017, extensive archaeological research was conducted on the grounds of the former German extermination camp in Sobibór. During one research season in 2016, archaeologists discovered two clusters of burnt human remains located outside the grounds of the Museum and Memorial Site in Sobibór, right at the edge of the protected zone of the Holocaust Monument. The locations were pointed out by an excavation worker who was also a resident of Sobibór. “He obtained information about the possible presence of burned human bones outside the former extermination camp during a conversation with several elderly Sobibór residents. He accidentally came across the site when he was picking mushrooms.” (Mazurek, 2016)

The indicated bone piles, examined by archaeologists and marked as ‘memorial site 1’ and ‘memorial site 2’, are located approximately 300 metres in a straight line west of the border of camp three (Lager III), where the gas chambers and mass graves were located. “The conducted work made it possible to locate a heap of burned human bones, consisting of white, brown, and blackened remains, forming a crescent-shaped mound approximately 5 meters in diameter, open toward the west. The thickness of the layer of burnt human remains reaches up to 1 meter. The concentration of remains gradually decreases radially in all directions from the mound. However, in the southern direction, where there is a slight slope and marshy terrain, the concentration of human bones is highest, which can be linked to the periodic water flow. The entire area covers approximately a 20×20 m square.” (Mazurek, 2016)

The answer to the question of how the ashes of the victims of the Sobibór extermination camp ended up in a forest 300 metres from their original burial site, i.e. camp three, is provided by the findings of the Voivodeship Prosecutor’s Office in Lublin, which in the 1960s conducted an investigation into the desecration of corpses at the execution site of victims of the German camp in Sobibór, Włodawa district. Below is an excerpt from the report of the site inspection carried out at the former camp three: “Both in the pits and throughout the entire area, burned and unburned bones are scattered, along with human skulls, jawbones with teeth, and long human hair. On some of the bones and skulls, flesh in an advanced state of decomposition is visible. There are piles of sifted earth and scattered bones everywhere.”

[…] “Further, approximately 300 meters to the southwest, there are massive heaps of human bones moved here from an excavation of a mass grave, as evidenced by a well-trodden path with scattered bones visible on it. The volume of these bone heaps can be estimated at approximately the equivalent of two railway freight cars. In the center of each heap, there is an excavated pit filled with water, which is currently frozen. There are four pits. As evidenced by the bone heaps and the remaining sieves and buckets, they were used for rinsing the bones brought here, because the bones found on site are clean.” (IPN Lu 257/132 vol. 2)

The report includes extensive photographic documentation, which shows, among other things, ‘an overall view of the forest and the soil dug up by the perpetrators,’ ‘a view of some of the washed bones from the execution site,’ ‘a view of the washing plant [a pit filled with water] where the bones were washed,’ ‘a view of the sifted soil and washing plants.’” (IPN Lu 257/115 vol. 2) The term “wash plant” appearing in the report and in the defendants’ testimonies originates from mining terminology and refers to “a plant for processing mined material in order to remove gangue, i.e. material considered worthless using water, among other methods.” (Gisman, 1949)

During the investigation, employees of the Żłobek Forestry District were questioned. Testimony of Mieczysław N., one of the gamekeepers: “On 2 February 1960, I went to the site of the death camp in Sobibór. I saw Bolesław S., Michał G., Mikołaj G. and Zygmunt B. standing in a dug-up grave, with two sieves, a shovel, and a sack lying beside them. The grave had been dug 4 meters deep and up to 1.5 meters wide. I saw burnt bones in it. […] The individuals mentioned above were searvhing for gold in the graves, as evidenced by the fact that they were sifting through the bones exhumed from the graves. I saw broken skulls and other burnt bodies in the dug-up graves. […] The residents of Żłobek know that during the occupation, there was a Jewish ghetto at the site where the graves are being excavated in Sobibór, and that many people were murdered there. […] I would also like to mention that the people from Żłobek not only dug up and carried the bones to nearby washing plants, but also transported them by carts to the Tarasieńka River in Żłobek, located 5 kilometers from the graves, and washed them there. They did it at night. There are approximately five to seven cartloads of bones there, and they are clearly visible.” (IPN Lu 257/132 vol. 2)

Stefan K., a forester of the Żłobek Forestry District since 1953, also describes the practice of digging up the graves of Holocaust victims in Sobibór and notes that human ashes were taken away and rinsed in pits filled with water. “Within the area of State Forests under my jurisdiction, there is the former Sobibór extermination camp site, where the fascists murdered hundreds of thousands of people of Jewish nationality. The area is now mostly covered by forest. […] It was the gold seekers who damaged part of the forested area by digging pits. There were no informational or warning signs, nor any monuments, at the site of the former camp. However, the forest service guarded the area to ensure that no one disturbed it through digging pits or cutting trees. In the summer of 1959, we noticed that unknown individuals were digging pits there. At first, there were single pits, but later their number increased, and it became clear that the perpetrators were removing bones along with the soil and sifting them through sieves. It was clear that the bones were human, as evidenced by the presence of skulls and long human hair. The majority of the bones were burned, but among them I saw unburnt bones and skulls containing partially decomposed brain matter and blood. Starting in August or September 1959, the gamekeepers reported to me that unknown individuals were digging pits on the grounds of the former Sobibór death camp, sifting the soil through sieves, and carrying the sifted bones to a swamp approximately 200 meters away, where they washed them in pits filled with water. […] The militia arrived and detained these people. When anyone approached the area of the former camp, the diggers would flee, abandoning their sieves and shovels. In order to scare them away, we fired warning shots into the air from our shotguns, which initially proved effective. In the winter of 1960, in January and February, the residents of Żłobek, together with other unknown individuals, began digging pits on a mass scale in search of gold in the mass graves of the victims of fascism. […] The forest inspectorate then took steps to fence off the site with wooden poles and ordered warning signs. When people found out about this, they began digging there without attempting to hide it. The pits were dug to a depth of about 2-3 meters. People were even digging tunnels and ransacking entire graves in search of gold. The volume of human bones they sifted and washed would correspond roughly to two railway freight wagons.” (IPN Lu 257/132 vol. 2)

The defendant, Mikołaj G., confirms in his testimony that human ashes were taken out of the forest: “I went to the site of the former death camp, where the victims of fascist terror – the Jews – are buried. There, we dug up charred bones, sifted them through a sieve, poured them into a bag, and then carried them to a pit filled with water, where we washed them in search of gold.” (IPN Lu 257/132, vol. 2)

Contact and cooperation

We are still looking for information on the identity of the victims and the location of Jewish graves in Żłobek. If you know something more, write to us at the following address: kontakt@zapomniane.org.

Bibliography

IPN Lu 257/115, volumes 1–2, criminal case files against Tadeusz Ładniak, father’s name Antoni, born 25 January 1935, and others, accused of exhuming the graves of victims of the former Sobibór extermination camp, i.e., of committing an offense under Article 26 of the Decree of 13 June 1946.

IPN Lu 257/132, volume 2, criminal case files against Kazimierz Piwoński, father’s name Jan, born 11 January 1928, and others, accused of exhuming the graves of victims of the former Sobibór extermination camp, i.e., of committing an offense under Article 26 of the Decree of 13 June 1946.

Wojciech Mazurek, Wyniki archeologicznych badań rozpoznawczych w miejscu odkrycia szczątków ludzkich w granicach Pomnika Zagłady-Muzuemu byłego Niemieckiego, Nazistwoskiego Obozu Zagładu Żydów w Sobiborze przeprowadzonych wiosną 2016 r. (Results of archaeological research conducted in spring 2016 at the site the site of the discovery of human remains within the grounds of the Memorial and Museum of the former German extermination camp for Jews in Sobibór), Chełm, 2016

Two record sheets of a war burial site in the borough of Włodawa, drawn up on October 22, 2020.

Paweł P. Reszka, Płuczki. Poszukiwacze żydowskiego złota (Wash plants. Seekers of Jewish gold), Warszawa, 2019.

Gisman S. Słownik Górniczy. Barwy górnictwa (Mining Dictionary. The Colors of Mining), Katowice, 1949

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