Treblinka 2017, Penknife

Of the many complete and partial knives recovered in the 2017 excavations, a stand-out example is this penknife, as it is one of only three that were recovered. All three are thought to have been personal artefacts that belonged to victims of the camp. The treatment of such personal belongings 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.