Mikołaj Kostyrko

The Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice, Poland, is a complex of former prisoner of war (PoW) and resettlement camps that functioned in the vicinity of the village from the time of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-1871 until 1946. This article focuses on the material remains and landscape transformations related to the functioning of Stalag 318/VIII F (344) Lamsdorf. The authors present the applied methodology of the “Science for society, society for science at the Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice” project, in which available archival sources and obtained archaeological data complement each other. Such a holistic approach has allowed conducting a more complete inventory and mapping of what has remained of Stalag 318/VIII F (344) Lamsdorf until the present day.

This article presents the general historical context of the mass shootings in the fall of 1939 in the pre-war Gdańsk Pomerania, Poland, and introduces the very term “Pomeranian Crime of 1939.” The executions in the Szpęgawski Forest, where between 2,413 and 7,000 people lost their lives, illustrate of the process itself. The results of archaeological research carried out at the site of the mass killings in the Szpęgawski Forest in 2023 is used as a case study. Archaeological research is shedding new light on the crime and its cover-up through analyses of the material evidence.

Since June 2022, the Central Museum of Prisoners-of-War (Poland) has been carrying out a multidisciplinary research project entitled “Science for Society, Society for Science at the Site of National Remembrance in Łambinowice.” The aim of this article is to discuss the preliminary results of selected non-invasive and invasive archaeological and ethnographic research realized during the first months of the field activities. Additionally, they show the value of so-called community archaeology in which the participation of local inhabitants in field research is an important element of applied methodology.

The centenaries of the outbreak and end of the Great War have caused a renewed social, cultural, and scientific interest in the complex nature of the conflict as well as its manifold consequences. Archaeology has been actively involved in re-discovering the material imprint of the Great War on various local landscapes. This paper discusses the application of, and recent advancements in, non-invasive archaeology of the Great War in Poland, taking research at a prisoner of war (PoW) camp in Tuchola, Poland as a case study. Through an analysis of the historical, oral, and material records related to the opening, operating, and closing of the camp, we intend to present recent analyses and discoveries related to the Tuchola camp and indicate the role of archaeological research with regards to such archaeological landscapes as PoW camps dated to the Great War.