The Former Gestapo Headquarters and the Provincial Office of Public Security in Anstadt Avenue in Łódź Interdisciplinary Site Research

Abstract

The paper discusses the research me­thods and the most important results of the interdisciplinary project “The Former Gestapo Headquarters and the Provincial Office of Public Security in Anstadt Avenue in Łódź. Interdisciplinary Site Research” conducted in 2019–2021. Considering the challenges faced by the archaeology of the contemporary past, a subdiscipline of archaeology, an attempt was made to link the results of archaeological research to the relatively well-known historical context of structural and functional transformations of the site explored, mostly the establishment of a Jewish school in Anstadt Avenue at the end of the 1930s, the operation of the Gestapo headquarters during the Second World War and of the communist Provincial Office of Public Security after the war, and the division of the site into police and school sections in 1957, which has been preserved to date. Also ethno­graphic research was carried out, which identified sources referring to the forms of remembrance and commemoration of places, events, and people. The Authors hope that the archaeological research will be soon resumed on account of the planned investments, allowing to publish a complementary and interdisciplinary monograph of the site explored.