Nail recovered from Chelmno killing center
Extent and Medium
overall: Height: 3.375 inches (8.573 cm) | Width: 3.500 inches (8.89 cm) | Depth: 0.375 inches (0.953 cm)
Archival History
The nail was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1989 by the Muzeum Okręgowe w Koninie.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Muzeum Okręgowe w Koninie
Scope and Content
Metal nail, likely recovered from a temporary pit furnace at Chelmno killing center in German-occupied Poland, during an archaeological excavation in 1986 and 1987. Killing operations at Chelmno commenced on December 8, 1941. Prisoners were taken to a camp at a manor house (Schlosslager) in the village to undress and relinquish their valuables. They were then loaded into a gas van where they were killed. The van was then driven 2.5 miles northwest of the village to a camp in the Rzuchowski forest (Waldlager), where the bodies were dumped into mass graves. The large number of corpses created a threat of disease and discovery by Allied forces, so the bodies were exhumed and burned in seven primitive pit furnaces. In the fall of 1942, the furnaces were replaced with two open-air crematoria consisting of concrete foundations topped by a grate of train rails. In March 1943, transports to Chelmno stopped, and the manor house and open-air crematoria in the forest were demolished. Deportations to Chelmno resumed from June to July 1944, to facilitate the liquidation of the Łódź ghetto. In this second phase, the entire killing process was carried out in the forest camp (Waldlager), necessitating the construction of new buildings. The Germans abandoned the camp on January 17, 1945, having killed over 172,000 people. The excavations of 1986-87, and later work have identified additional furnaces, crematoria, and mass graves at the site.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
No restrictions on use
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Dark gray, iron nail bent in a 90-degree angle at the center. The nail has a round head and a square shank that tapers to a sharp point at the tip. The bottom half of the nail has slight brown and white rust. At the bent center, the original surface has partially flaked off, and the top portion of the nail is missing the original surface entirely. The edges of the head are bent and uneven, and the head and the top portion of the shank are covered in a heavy orange-brown corrosion.
Bottom, side of shank, handwritten, black ink : CHO 25
Corporate Bodies
- Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei. Schutzstaffel
- Chelmno (Concentration camp)
Subjects
- Exhumation--Cremation--Poland.
- Gas vans (Gas chambers)--Poland.
- World War, 1939-1945--Occupied territories.
- Executions and executioners--Poland--History.
- Genocide.
- Mass burials--Poland.
- Chełmno (Koło, Poland)
- Crematoriums--Poland.
- Rzuchowa (Poland)
- Archaeology and history.
- Execution sites--Excavation--Material culture.
Genre
- Object
- Tools and Equipment
- Hardware.