Collecting Artifacts on Holocaust Sites: A Critical review of Archaeological Research in Ybenheer, Westerbork, and Sobib
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Collecting Artifacts on Holocaust Sites: A Critical review of Archaeological Research in Ybenheer, Westerbork, and Sobibor Ivar Schute 1
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017
Abstract Following the author’s involvement in archaeological research projects at different Nazi camps, this article provides a critical analysis of the collection, selection, and analyses of artifacts. Firstly, this paper argues that the effect of national heritage management strategies is decisive and asks for evaluation and co-operation with historians. Secondly, this research was carried out on behalf of a memorial center. It is argued that due to the different perspectives of memorial centers and archaeologists this relationship should be reconsidered. The client-contractor relationship should be avoided and replaced by a different relationship, namely that of partners in a joint undertaking. Keywords Holocaust . Material Culture . Memorial Culture
Introduction In September 2014, the foundations of the gas chambers of the former Nazi extermination camp of Sobibor in Poland were discovered. This gained worldwide media attention, but also raised questions: why were these excavations carried out in the first place and how should we assess the results? Discussion arose about the ownership of artifacts, especially after personal items were found, and debate started about the invasiveness of the large-scale excavations in Sobibor. One could say the Sobibor excavations formed the culmination of an emerging Holocaust archaeology in the last decade, research which tends to have a strong emphasis on material culture and its emotional and symbolic value. The term BHolocaust archaeology^ as used in this paper should be read as Bthe archaeology at
* Ivar Schute [email protected]
1
RAAP Archaeological Consultancy, Leiden, The Netherlands
Int J Histor Archaeol
sites of National Socialist terror inflicted on Jews,^ so not constrained solely to the actual extermination camps. Often archaeological research at Holocaust camp sites is executed within the framework of national heritage management strategies, in co-operation with or commissioned by memorial centers. Three such research projects, in a historical sense related to each other, are analyzed in this article: Ybenheer, Westerbork, and Sobibor. From the Jewish labor camp of Ybenheer all forced laborers were transported to the Jewish transit camp of Westerbork. Both camps lie in the northern part of the Netherlands. From Westerbork almost 35,000 Dutch Jews were transported and killed in the German extermination camp of Sobibor in Poland. The context of the research projects in these camps, and its effects on data processing, research strategies, and methodology, will be analyzed here, a context which is ruled by cultural, social, political, and religious conditions. This analysis critically reflects on the co-operation of archaeologists, historians, and memorial centers, the invasiveness of this research, and the effects the above-mentioned conditions have on the study of the material cu
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