Necrosol as a Material Archive of Genocide: The Case of the Nazi German Mass Crimes in the Szpęgawsk Forest

Abstract

The first months of World War II in Gdańsk Pomerania saw the mass murder of local intellectual elites, of people with mental disorders or disabilities and of representatives of the small Jewish community. The Germans usually hid the victims’ bodies in mass graves. About 30 places of execution from this “bloody autumn of 1939” were destroyed in the second half of 1944, as part of Aktion 1005, an operation to conceal evidence of the crimes. In this paper, we present the historical context for the characteristics of the necrosol from one mass grave in the Szpęgawsk Forest, which was destroyed/desecrated by the Germans at the end of 1944. The research proves that even the destruction of mass graves by exhuming the bodies and burning them leaves material traces that allow for the reconstruction of the organisation of the crime and the methods of covering it up.