A pair of mass graves containing 19 tons of ash of at least 8,000 people have been discovered outside the former Nazi concentration camp Soldau in Poland.
The estimate is based on the weight of the remains, with four pounds roughly equivalent to one body.
Investigators said the victims were at one point murdered and buried, but were then exhumed and burned by members of the Nazi party in an attempt to cover up the murders.
In the area where the graves were dug now stands a stone monument with the inscription ‘Nieznani meczennicy Polegli za polskosc. 1939-1944’ in Polish and reads ‘Unknown martyrs fell for Polishness. 1939-1944’ in English.
Officials unveiled the monument on Wednesday, noting that the war crimes committed on the land will not be forgotten.
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A stone monument now covers the tomb, with the inscription ‘Nieznani meczennicy Polegli za polskosc. 1939-1944’ in Polish with the text ‘Unknown martyrs fell for Polishness. 1939-1944’
Karol Nawrocki, president of the Institute of National Remembrance in Poland (IPN), said in a pronunciation: ‘The Germans decided to evade responsibility for the crimes they had committed.’
He continued to explain that the approximately 8,000 victims were probably taken outside the camp and executed by gunshot to the head in 1939.
The mass grave was discovered last month, but Wednesday was the official memorial ceremony outside the Soldau concentration camp, which is in ruins.
One of the discovered tombs is 91 feet long and the other 39 feet.
A pair of mass graves containing 19 tons of ash of at least 8,000 people have been discovered outside the former Nazi concentration camp Soldau in Poland. Pictured is what is left of the camp
Officials unveiled the monument on Wednesday, noting that the war crimes committed on the land will not be forgotten
Tomasz Jankowski of the IPN said at the conference, “The people whose ashes are buried here have been murdered and robbed.”
The bodies were then thrown into a large grave, but when the Soviets invaded Poland, Nazi soldiers frantically dug up the victims, burned them and dumped the ashes in a single grave – this is said to have happened in 1944.
“The cover-up has failed because the IPN is determined to search for the victims and heroes of WW2 and will never allow even one of them to be forgotten,” Nawrocki said.
Soldau camp was established in the fall of 1939 and initially served as a prison camp for Poland’s Jewish elites. Pictured is the camp when it was operational
IPN is an institute that investigates crimes committed during the Nazi occupation of Poland and the communist era.
Soldau camp was established in the fall of 1939 and initially served as a prison camp for Poland’s Jewish elites.
It was located in Działdowo, a city in northeastern Poland.
This program included gassing experiments on people with intellectual disabilities.
In May 1940, the SS camp was transformed into a labor camp used by all state police posts in East Prussia until January 1945, when it was taken over by Soviet soldiers.
Pictured is the area where the mass graves were discovered
On July 13, 2022, construction work will continue at the former German Nazi Soldier concentration camp in Dzialdowo, Poland, close to the site where the mass graves were found.
In the spring of 1944, Nazi soldiers were ordered to conduct an excavation operation called Aktion 1005 near Soldau to cover up the traces of the 1940 and 1941 massacres.
“In the spring of 1944, the remains of people were exhumed and burned at this site, so that this crime does not see the light of day and no one is held accountable,” IPN shared on Twitter.
There are several monuments in the wooded area around the former camp, which were erected to honor the 13,000 to 20,000 victims of the concentration camp.
Andrzej Ossowski, a genetics researcher at Pomeranian Medical University, told AFP that samples of the ashes in the mass grave had been taken and would be studied in a lab.
“We can conduct DNA analysis, which will allow us to learn more about the identities of the victims,” he added, following similar studies in former Nazi camps in Sobibor and Treblinka.