The use of non-invasive techniques in locating graves of Holocaust victims; the Rejowiec case study

The Holocaust - the almost total extermination of European Jews by the Germans during World War II (1939-45) is primarily associated with such German extermination camps as Auschwitz, Bełżec, Majdanek, Sobibór or Treblinka. In addition to these places, Central and Eastern Europe, including territory, within the present Polish borders, is literally dotted with forgotten individual and mass Jewish war graves. These are the graves of Jews who were not sent to the German death camps during the liquidation of the ghettos during Reinhardt’s operation (March 1942 - November 1943), but were murdered during and after the mass extermination. These Jews were buried in nameless graves located in forests, roadside ditches, arable fields, etc. In most cases, their number and exact location are unknown, both for scientists and descendants of victims, although they often exist in the memories of the last living witnesses of the Holocaust and local communities . One of the statutory tasks of the Rabbinical Commission for Jewish cemeteries in Poland is to search for the forgotten graves of Holocaust victims and restore the identity of the murderers who were taken away from them. The Commission, as a religious entity, headed by the Chief Rabbi of Poland, operates in support of the Jewish law - Halacha, whose regulations define the method and methodology of research. Halacha prohibits opening graves and moving the remains of the dead. All investigations specifying the location and size of the graves they must be carried out in a non-invasive manner, without interfering with the soil structure. In this study, the authors present the first results of work on the location of places of execution and mass graves of Jews from World War II, which were carried out using methods respecting the provisions of Jewish law. To locate these places, the following methods are used: the Holocaust witness account, documents from the Institute of National Remembrance, data from laser scanning, GPR measurements, historical and current aerial photographs. The authors will present the methods of their work and the problems they faced during the research.