Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2024 - 60

LETTER FROM POLAND
images to identify where in the
valley the trenches might be based
on topography and surviving
landmarks. Using metal detectors,
the team probed the area for
bullets and personal effects.
Particularly green vegetation
provided another telltale sign of a
mass grave's location. " Trenches
that human bodies were put into
are a good place for wheat to
grow, " says Kobiałka.
In 2023, researchers identified
part of the trench where
the Germans had buried their
victims. Artifacts including fired
bullets and shell casings from
German Mauser pistols, personal
items, and scattered human
bones were clues that the spot
was linked to the 1939 killings.
However, no complete skeletons
remained, suggesting this area
had been identified and bodies
exhumed by Polish authorities in
November 1945. " Lots of people
thought they were just stories, "
Kobiałka says. " Unfortunately,
archaeology shows the stories are
mostly true. " In spring 2024, his team
returned with mechanical excavators
to follow the trench line in both directions.
What they found in just a few
weeks of digging has provided them
with the evidence they need to reconstruct
how the massacre unfolded.
T
60
o stand alongside the excavation
trench, which stretches 100
feet north to south, is stomachwrenching.
Dozens of jumbled
skeletons, sometimes stacked four
deep, lie at the bottom of the ditch.
Apart from human bones and
bullets, the most common artifacts
in the southern part of the trench
are lightweight zinc buttons, once
probably covered with fabric. The
buttons are proof, says Kobiałka, that
these bones belong to the more than
200 patients taken from the psychiatric
bones together. Nearby sits an
olive drab tent filled with small
wooden coffins to hold individual
bodies. Some remains are too
mixed up to know what fits
together, but by counting specific
bones-right femurs, for example,
or skulls-Rogóż can calculate the
minimum number of individuals
buried in the trench.
Studying damage to the bones
can reveal evidence of how
Forensic anthropologist Joanna Rogóz examines a skull with
a bullet hole excavated at the site of the 1939 massacre.
hospital in 1939. " The patients were
brought here and murdered in their
pajamas, " he says.
As his colleagues brush dirt from
skeletal remains, Kobiałka indicates the
places near the top of the trench where
bones were disturbed or removed
during the exhumation efforts in late
1945. In lower layers, small orange
pins now mark skeletons that remain
intact. Before freeing bones from
the soil, archaeologists photograph
the layered bodies from every angle,
making it possible to reconstruct the
scene by knitting the images together
using software.
Once the bones are removed, they
are passed carefully out of the trench
to forensic anthropologist Joanna
Rogóż of the University of Rzeszów.
Whenever possible, she tries to identify
complete skeletons and keep their
people were killed. Delicately
holding a skull stained brown
after eight decades in the soil,
Rogóż points out a large coneshaped
hole from which cracks
radiate. " That's very typical of
bullet holes, " she says. The lack
of a consistent pattern in the
wounds hints at how chaotic
the scene at the execution site
was. " There was no one modus
operandi, " Kobiałka says. " There
are gunshots to the forehead, to
the side of the head, to the ribs. "
Rogóż has been able to
piece together a rough profile
of the executed patients from
the psychiatric hospital. She has
deduced that all the victims were
men, most in their 20s and 30s.
Health conditions that leave traces in
bone-a fused vertebra, perhaps, or a
healed broken arm-can potentially
be matched with medical records to
give names to skeletal remains. After
Rogóż completes her initial analysis,
the remains are sampled for DNA
in the hope of tracking down living
descendants. " We have archival sources
about the victims, and people who
remember what happened, " she says.
" It's not just science-it's science on
behalf of people in Chojnice. Maybe
someday we'll be able to locate their
relatives based on this research. "
C
hojnice is distinctive as an
archaeological site not just
because it's recent, but also
ARCHAEOLOGY * November/December 2024
Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2024

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