14 March, 9:30 AM - 5 PM CET | Het Trippenhuis, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

The archaeological research at the site of the former Nazi extermination Camp Sobibor, which began in 2000 and continued until 2020, represents the most extensive archaeological excavations to have been held at a Holocaust site. For this symposium, EHRI coordinator NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies is bringing together an international group of interdisciplinary scholars to shed light on archaeological research on Sobibor and its broader context from multiple perspectives.

Camp Sobibor operated from May 1942 to October 1943. Approximately 180,000 people, predominantly Jewish, were killed there. The majority were Polish Jews, with more than 34,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands. Following the October 14, 1943, uprising, the SS decided to liquidate the camp and obliterate all traces. The symposium will discuss the results of archaeological research at the Sobibor memorial site. In a broader perspective, the symposium offers a retrospective and a forward-looking examination of the role and significance of archaeological research on Holocaust and terror sites, exploring potentially innovative insights attached to these memorial places.

The symposium marks the completion of the NIOD project ‘Sobibor - Archeology of Destruction’. Additionally, two book publications from the project will be presented during the conference:

The scientific volume Excavating Sobibor. Holocaust Archaeology between Heritage, History and Memory, edited by Martijn Eickhoff, Erik Somers and Jelke Take.

The public book Traces of Sobibor. Archaeology of an Extermination Camp by Erik Schumacher. This book is available in four language editions.

Download the Excavating Sobibor Programme

Date and time: 14 March, from 09:30 AM until 5.00 PM CET
Location: Het Trippenhuis, Kloveniersburgwal 29, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Entrance: is free
Attendance is free, but registration is required: Please send an email to bestuurssecretariaat@niod.knaw.nl
Information project: www.niod.nl/en/projects/archaeology-destruction
Information book publications: www.wbooks.com