Photos from Sobibor

	This is the map of the grounds at Sobibor. Before we went on our trip, Sobibor was described to me by many Poles as the end of the world. They were right. Sobibor is right at the edge of Poland, where the Ukraine and Beylorus meet. Like Treblinka, Sobibor is not actually in the town of Sobibor, but about five or six kilometers away, deep in a forest. The last five kilometers of our trip was literally on a dirt road, through the middle of a pine forest. This was also the only museum/information center that we could not visit. Their hours are 9 am to 2 pm, which seem odd, even for museum hours.
	Like the other Operation Reinhard camps, there is nothing left of Sobibor. The Nazis destroyed everything when they left.
	Unlike some of the other camps that had barbed wire fencing, at Sobibor, the Nazis often used the trees themselves as the fencing.
	Here is a piece of barbed wire still stuck in the tree after sixty years. The red and white tape is left by the excavation and archaeological teams that began working in Sobibor in 2001. Using advanced magnetic imagers, they have probed the surface of Sobibor and found the remains of many structures under the ground. These new findings have allowed scholars to create more accurate maps of the camp.
	This is a shot of the Mausoleum at Sobibor. The field surrounding this Mausoleum is literally covered in ashes and bone, brick, and terra cotta fragments. At Sobibor, they had a bone crusher, so that there are no full bones found here, only fragments. The mausoleum was created when the Allies entered this area and found large piles of ashes, still unburied.
	This is a view of the clearing around the mausoleum where the Nazis filled open graves with tons of bone fragments and ashes.
	Another view of the ash fields.
	Here are pieces of brick and terra cotta from when the Nazis dynamited the entire area.
	This is a close-up of the ash pile in the open mausoleum. As you can see, many wild flowers have since begun growing all over the ash pile. I can think of no more fitting tribute to the victims, given the circumstances.
	This is one of two monument in a clearing before you reach the mausoleum. It is a dark red stone sculpture of a mother holding her child.
	A close-up of the sculpture.
	This is the other monument, only a few yards from the sculpture. What struck me about this monument is that it has no name, and no documentation around it at all, so that as a structure, its function or purpose remains a mystery. This is very fitting for Sobibor, since most of the Polish Jews who were sent here simply disappeared from their communities without a trace.
	While we have good estimates of the number of victims killed here (thanks to the Nazis and their meticulous record keeping), most of their names and identities remain lost.
	As a way to remember the victims of Sobibor, recently families, who know that their relatives were sent here, have been placing name plaques along this new path. Behind each name plaque is a new pine tree. Even though over 200,000 Jews were murdered here, less than a hundred names of victims are known for sure.
	This is one of the name plates, placed on the stone in front of the newly planted tree.
	This is the main sign outside the Sobibor camp.
	A close-up of the sign.
	This is the rail spur where the trains stopped with tier victims. Today, Sobibor's economy is mainly based on logging, which they ship along the rail line. The spur built by the Nazis, however, has never been reused.
	This is the platform where the Jews were unloaded and led across the street into the main camp. The tracks are now overgrown.

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