SALEM — Caroline Sturdy Colls, a professor from the University of Huddersfield in the U.K., will visit Salem State University on Thursday for a lecture focusing on her work in the newly developed sub-discipline of archaeology focusing on Holocaust sites.
Through a partnership with Keene State College in New Hampshire, Salem State will host Colls for a lecture titled “Holocaust Archaeologies: Approaches and New Future Directions.”
The event is co-sponsored by the school’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, as well as it’s geography and sustainability, geographical sciences and history departments, and the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore as a community partner.
“In addition to the partnership we have with the community of Holocaust Education Centers at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, there’s a lot of power in two state universities bringing their resources together to bring an international scholar to campus,” said Christopher Mauriello, director for Salem State’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. “Neither of us could do it without this partnership.”
The lecture will focus on the application of interdisciplinary approaches to the investigation of Holocaust landscapes.
Colls first forensic archaeological investigations were done at Treblinka Extermination and Labor Camps, the results of which will be presented in her forthcoming book Finding Treblinka. She is the author of several other books including Holocaust Archaeologies: Approaches and Future Directions (2015) and Adolf Island: The Nazi Occupation of Alderney (2022).
“More than 900,000 Jewish men, women, and children were murdered at the Treblinka Death Camp during the Holocaust,” said Regina Kazyulina, visiting assistant professor and program research associate at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. “Because the camp was largely destroyed in 1944, it was long thought that little evidence of the horrors committed there remained.
“Professor Sturdy Colls and her team were the first to adopt new technologies, such as ground penetrating radar, satellite imaging, as well as other techniques common to forensic archeology, to study Treblinka. Their work not only provided new insights into the camp and the location of mass graves, but also showed the immense potential of such techniques for analyzing sites of mass violence in an ethical, noninvasive way that does not disturb the soil and the remains of victims.”
The event will be conducted in-person and live streamed on Zoom from 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 26.
Michael McHugh can be contacted at mmchugh@northofboston.com or at 781-799-5202