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Location of the building housing the gas chambers has been found during archaeological research conducted on the grounds of the former German death camp in Sobibór. The chambers were blown up in 1943 when the Sobibór camp was liquidated. Numerous fragments of their foundations were uncovered.Tomasz Kranz, director of the Museum at Majdanek, stressed that uncovering the remnants of the Sobibór gas chambers was a historic event: “The whole former camp is one huge crime scene, but of the special documentary value are places related directly to the extermination: road which Jews covered to gas chambers (the so called hosepipe – “Schlauch”), extermination site, and mass graves with ashes of the victims.”

Historical knowledge on the Nazi death camps operating within the framework of “Aktion Reinhardt” has still been incomplete. Scarce sources and lack of the camp documents (especially plans or construction drafts) make it impossible to specify important details concerning topography and buildings of the camps. Researchers have to count mainly on accounts by members of the camp staff and few survivors. (References related to the Sobibór camp are extensively discussed in the article by Robert Kuwałek, Obóz zagłady w Sobiborze w histroriografii polskiej i obcej, “Zeszyty Majdanka,” 2011, vol. 21, pp. 115-164). Although the revolt organized on October 14, 1943, proved successful, none of the prisoners forced to operate gas chambers and burn bodies of the killed survived the death camp in Sobibór. They were strictly separated from other prisoners and rarely managed to inform on what happened in the extermination sector (Lager III). It can be inferred from thematerials gathered by investigators and witnesses’ accounts that the Sobibór gas chambers were housed in a brick building whose real purpose was concealed with a signboard with an inscription “Baderaum” (baths) and shower strainers hung under the ceiling. In the second stage of the camp functioning, there were six or eight chambers in the building. They were furnished with a system of pipes connected with an engine exhuming poisonous gas used for killing Jews brought to Sobibór. The rooms were locked with steel doors furnished with glass peep-holes used in anti-aircraft bunkers (such doors were also installed in the gas chambers at Majdanek) from one side and with wider doors through which corpses were taken out from the other side. In 20-30 minutes about 500 people were murdered in the gas chambers at once. Bodies were hauled with narrow-gauge railway cars to huge holes where they were buried. By the end of 1942, a field crematory was built of rails in one of them, where bodies of the gassed people were burnt down on pyres. This year's archaeological excavation is the first stage of the investment related with construction of the museum and new spatial arrangement of the memorial site in Sobibór carried out by the State Museum at Majdanek in cooperation with the Foundation Polish-German Reconciliation.