INTERPRT exhibited a section of Race and Forest for the exhibition “I will return, and I will be millions” as part of Homeworks 8 held in Beirut. At the centre of the exhibition is a large map of Nazi occupied Poland that is reorganized along the natural limits of tree species and between temperate and ‘Asian’ climes. What is missing from the map from 1942 are the atrocity crimes of Nazi Germany committed within Poland’s territory. The extermination camps of the holocaust – Chełmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, Majdanek, Bełżec, Auschwitz – were all located in or near forests. We adapted the map – translated into Arabic – to include their locations.

While the history of Treblinka and Auschwitz are well-know, much less attention has been paid to Chelmno, the first extermination of the Holocaust located in Warthegau, outside the jurisdiction of the General Government in present day Western Poland. Living Evidence is a visual investigation that combines archaeological maps, aerial imagery, airborne LiDAR scanning and interviews to explore the microtopography of a secret reforestation program where bones of victims were turned to fertilizer.