Treblinka 2017,Glasses

These glasses were the only pair recovered during the 2017 excavations, and are thought to have belonged to one of Treblinka’s many thousands of victims. Glasses, along with artificial limbs, hair and teeth, were all removed from the bodies of victims of the gas chambers before incineration. As personal belongings, the fate of objects such as glasses can be assumed to have been similar at Treblinka to how it was at the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau – victims were made to offer up all of their personal artefacts to guards when they arrived at the gates. Their belongings would then be sorted in a region of the camp dubbed the ‘Canada’ region, as the Nazis believed Canada to be a wealthy, bountiful country. Next followed shipment of the items to Germany, to be given to German civilians or used in industry.