Holocaust Mass Graves

As sites of the Holocaust, we usually remember the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. However, around a quarter of all European Jews murdered by the Germans – sometimes with either voluntary or forced local support – lost their lives in mass shootings near their homes. Roma Sendyka has referred to this aspect of the genocide as the "dispersed Holocaust". She thus points to the particular challenge of researching these crimes and remembering them.

The research project "Holocaust Mass Graves" is dedicated to these challenges using the example of today's south-eastern Poland. The project has been initiated by the German Historical Institute Warsaw and is supported by the ZEIT Foundation and the EVZ Foundation. In cooperation with the universities of Warsaw and Łódź, a team of researchers from various disciplines and institutions has been put together to research the history of individual mass shootings as well as the post-war histories of the killing sites.

One part of the project is the creation of a database with an interactive map of the General Government. It will provide a list of the mass graves’ locations as well as links to basic information on the history, post-history and current state of the sites. This shall facilitate further research on the "dispersed Holocaust," on the one hand, and aims to attract public memory promote knowledge about the crimes, on the other hand. The team will also realize educational projects on site.

We will announce more information about the project shortly.

Team:

Magdalena Saryusz-Wolska, GHI Warschau (Project leader)

Julia Machnowska, European Network Memory and Solidarity (Coordinator)

Łukasz Krzyżanowski, University of Warsaw

Anna Zalewska, University of Łódź

Katarzyna Anzorge, University of Łódź

Angelika Bachanek, Maria-Curie-Skłodowska-University Lublin

Jacek Czarnecki, independent researcher

Kamil Karski, Museum of the former concentration camp Płaszów

Krzysztof Malicki, University Rzeszów

Elżbieta Muter, Krakow University of Agriculture

Grzegorz Myrda, Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Agnieszka Nieradko, Fundation Zapomniane

Tomasz Panecki, Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Diana Partel, University of Heidelberg

Marta Pawlińska, University of Warsaw

Aleksandra Szczepan, University of Potsdam

Aniela Wrzesińska, Historical Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Bruno Zwierz, University of Warsaw

Iwona Żuk, Ipsylon Laboratory for Social Analysis

Zuzanna Dziuban, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Janek Gryta, University of Southampton