Between 1997 and 1999, Polish archeologist Professor Andrzej Kola carried out select excavations and probe drills at the former site of the Bełżec camp in eastern Poland, where allegedly 434,501 Jews (434,508 Jews were deported to the camp according to the so-called Höfle telegram, whereof 7 reportedly survived) were gassed to death, buried, disinterred and cremated on open pyres between 1942 and 1943. The total areal of this camp, which was completely dismantled in September 1943, amounted to no more than 6.2 hectares, with the “Totenlager” part containing the gas chambers and mass graves taking up roughly half of this space.     

In 2000, Kola published the book Belzec: The Nazi Camp for Jews in the Light of Archeological Sources. Excavations 1997-1999 (The Council for the Protection of Memory of Combat and Martyrdom/USHMM) wherein he reported that he and his team through drillings had discovered 32 grave pits with a total surface area of 5,919 square meters and a total volume of 21,310 cubic meters. The news of Kola’s research was widely touted as the definite proof that Bełżec had served as an extermination camp where hundreds of thousands of European Jews had met their death. (Read more…)