Value in Context: Material Culture and Treblinka

The complexity of the history of the Treblinka II Nazi German death camp (located in Poland) provides a unique opportunity to conduct a fine-grained examination of the concept of the value of material assemblages and how this can vary depending on temporal, historical, and societal context. Following its closure, the site transitioned from a razed camp to a crime scene to a potential treasure repository to a memorial and finally to an archaeological site. In this paper, we present the various ways in which the value attributed to objects present within the camp landscape evolved and how the terrible judicial and cultural tragedy that was the Holocaust means that many of these values were aggregated over time. By providing a contextualized discussion of value, we present trends that will be relevant to scholars engaged in the study of material culture from a wide range of epochs while also identifying those that are unique to assemblages pertaining to conflict and genocide.