Materialność akcji 1005 – przykład zacierania śladów niemieckich, masowych zbrodni w Lesie Szpęgawskim

Abstract

During the first months of the Second World War in the Pomeranian Voivodeship (and Kuyavia), the Germans murdered – as can only be generally estimated – about 20,000-30,000 citizens of the Second Polish Republic. The bodies of the victims were usually buried in mass graves. This was the first example of German genocide committed in the years 1939-1945. In the second half of 1944, the bodies of the victims were exhumed from about 30 execution sites and then burned in order to cover up the traces of the crime (Aktion 1005). This article emphasizes the key role of archaeological research in the context of documenting and studying the traces of mass crimes. Despite the mass scale of the atrocity in the autumn of 1939 and the c. 400 execution sites known, they were have been the subject of research primarily by professional historians and local historians. The project “Archaeology of the Pomeranian Crime of 1939” is the first attempt at a new, archaeological (and in fact interdisciplinary) look at the legacy of the events of autumn 1939 and their concealment at the end of 1944. The results of research in the Szpęgawsk Forest are presented as a case study. This was one of the largest and most important places of execution from the initial period of the Second World War in Gdańsk Pomerania, where the Germans destroyed mass graves as part of Aktion 1005.