Back to World War two conflict archaeology in Hanko Finland

Next week t´s time to continue fieldwork on the camps and battlefields of WW 2 in Hanko before autumn sets in and the sea gets too rough to visit the main sites of battle in the archipelago around Hanko in 1941.

Autumn in Hanko

During the past week  I have been sorting and analyzing the finds from the trial excavations of the German transition camp of Tulliniemi  (last spring) and now it´s time to deliver them to the Hanko Museum for safekeeping.

Volkswagen made small stove for the "Deutchen Lager Hanko" 1942-1944.

Interestingly enough it seems out that the Volkswagen made stoves (for Organsiation Todt) of the Tulliniemi transition camp in Hanko are exactly the same as a few stoves I documented in the concentration camp Auschwitz II (Birkenau) in 2013. This is of course not a big scientific discovery in itself but serves a a sinister reminder about how industry and war and the holocaust worked together in WW2. The same could maybe be said about the layout of  German transition camps in general in WW2.

Volkswagen made stove in Auschwitz II (Birkenau) in Poland. This stove (photographed "in situ" was the only heating source for a barrack that held hundreds of concentration camp inmates.