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Below-Ground Investigations

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Abstract

Because of the Nazis’ attempts to hide their crimes and landscape change since the end of the Second World War, much of the evidence of the Holocaust has been deliberately or naturally buried or concealed. Once a thorough assessment of any surviving above-ground evidence has been undertaken (Chap. 6), various methods can be employed to assess what lies below the ground. Assessing this evidence need not mean that invasive work has to be undertaken, given the variety of geophysical techniques that now exist. Equally, when invasive work is undertaken, it should be remembered that a wide range of evidence types can be recovered and analysed through various novel methods derived from archaeology and forensic science. This chapter provides a review of the methods that should be considered when assessing buried remains and the specific challenges associated with them when addressing the physical evidence of the Holocaust.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forensic and Crime Science, Centre of Archaeology, Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, United Kingdom

    Dr Caroline Sturdy Colls

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  1. Dr Caroline Sturdy Colls
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Correspondence to Caroline Sturdy Colls .

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Sturdy Colls, C. (2015). Below-Ground Investigations. In: Holocaust Archaeologies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10641-0_7

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