Dear .....,
When I read the sentence about Excavating the Holocost, I ask myself why did
they want to excavate in Auschwitz? What did they have got a archaeological
problem in Auschwitz? I think we know why the germans want to kill my past,
my jewish brothers and sisters, in Auschwitz.We know the bitter material
culture in Auschwitz. you should not inconvenience them. I dont understand
your archaeological ethics.
Fahri DIKKAYA
:-]
>From: "Paul Barford" <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Excavating the Holocaust
>Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 12:46:57 +0100
>
>A belated, but I hope not untopical, reply to Geoff Carver's contribution
>of 11 Jan 2000 - 19:17 GMT concerning the Irving libel trial and the
>interpretation of the evidence for the Holocaust:
> >> not quite archaeology, but: if they can't decide what happened 50-60
>years ago, with living witnesses and all, what chance do we have with
>archaeology? <<
>While not wanting in this forum to get involved in any way in the
>discussion with the Holocaust Deniers, it is not quite true that there is
>no archaeological aspect to this extremely emotive and controversial
>problem.
>
>Before they retreated at the end of the War, the Germans destroyed the four
>crematoria at Brzezinka (Birkenau = Auschwitz II), leaving them as
>collapsed ruins. In 1967 the Institute of the History of Material Culture
>of the Polish Academy of Sciences excavated the remains of Crematorium III.
>The full results of these excavations were never formally published but the
>material ("a rich assemblage of objects belonging to the murdered persons")
>and documentation still lingers in the basement of the Institute of
>Archaeology and Ethnology in Warsaw (information from the excavator). A
>film was made which is still from time to time shown on Polish television.
>The results of the work "recovered additional evidence for the crimes
>committed" at Auschwitz. The timing of the excavations was a bit
>unfortunate, just preceding a wave of antisemitism engendered by the
>political events of 1968.
>
>The site is presented briefly by Witold Hensel (1973) *Archaeologia Zywa*
>page 172 fig. 86 (Wheeler-type box system), while Jacek Lech in his
>extensive survey in English of Polish archaeology (*Between captivity and
>freedom: Polish archaeology in the twentieth century* 1997-8; Archaeologia
>Polona 35-6, pp25-222) has one sentence on these excavations and a better
>copy of the site photo (p. 131, fig. 66). He says "excavations were also
>necessary during investigation of the Nazi crimes at Auschwitz-Birkenau",
>while not explaining precisely to which investigations he refers, nor what
>the contribution of archaeology was. Was archaeology used as a means of
>producing material evidence - in the form of finds - as an illustration to
>a picture created from documentary and oral evidence, or could the
>archaeological evidence stand on its own right?
>
>The apparently somewhat cavalier treatment of this material raises a number
>of ethical questions. Perhaps it is time to return to the documentation of
>this unpublished site, and find a more suitable resting place for the
>discovered relics (such as the museum at Auschwitz).
>
>Similar excavations took place a few years ago at Chełmno near Koło in
>Poland. Again, a full report has not yet appeared. One wonders whether
>digging these sites serves a purpose which could not be achieved by other
>means, such as geophysical survey and aerial photographic study.
>
>Paul Barford
>(Warsaw, Poland)
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