Following an unsuccessful uprising in 1943, the Nazis attempted to cover their bloody tracks at Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, but Israeli archaeologist Yoram Haimi and his team are slowly but surely piecing together the stories 250,000 Jews, Romani and Slavs who lost their lives there.
In the past five years, the team has determined where the fences were placed, where executions were carried out, and likely where the gas chambers were located. The enormous amount of ash also indicates the estimate of a quarter of a million victims in actually a low one.
Along with these structural determinations, an abundance of personal items belonging to the victims have also been discovered.
The most touching find thus far, he said, has been an engraved metal identification tag bearing the name of Lea Judith de la Penha, a 6-year-old Jewish girl from Holland who Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial confirmed was murdered at the camp.
Haimi calls her the "symbol of Sobibor."
Though Haimi has yet to find traces of his own family, he continues to add chapters to the story that must never be forgotten.
Full story at Haaretz via io9.
Horrific chapters of history.
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons
