„The dead sleep here” – the history, archaeology and ethnography of Chojnice’s Death Valley

Abstract

Death Valley in Chojnice, Poland, is a mass murder site from World War II where Germans and various officials of the Third Reich organised and carried out mass executions of Poles. The site and the events that took place there have been the subject of scholarly research and war crimes prosecutions since 2020. This paper intends to outline three aspects of them: 1) how playing in Death Valley as a child determined the later scholarly interest in the site, 2) how reading of a book Chojnice 1939–1945, about World War II and the crimes committed in the region, drew attention to undiscovered aspects of the site, 3) the last parts present the course and preliminary results of three seasons of scientific research and prosecution of war crimes committed on the northern outskirts of the town.