Poland: The Polish Institute of National Remembrance, which investigates Nazi and communist crimes, announced the discovery and recovery of about 17.5 tons of human ashes near a former Nazi concentration camp in the country.
These remains were discovered at Ilovo Osada in the Bialutsky Forest near the site of the former Dialdovo (or Soldau in German) concentration camp 150 kilometres north of Warsaw and built during the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany in World War II. Since the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Soldau transit camp has been used to arrest and liquidate political opponents, members of Polish elites, and Jews.
Some estimate the number of prisoners killed in Soldao at about 30,000, but so far, historical sources do not allow this to be confirmed.
The discovery of this place “allows us to be sure that at least 8,000 people died here,” Thomas Jankowski, the institute’s chief prosecutor, said on Wednesday.
This number was estimated thanks to the weight of the remains, as anybody is equivalent to approximately two kilograms of ash.
“It is possible that the victims buried in this grave were killed around 1939, and most of them were from the Polish elite,” Jankowski said.
In 1944, Jewish prisoners were tasked with exhuming and burning corpses in order to erase traces of Nazi war crimes.
“We took samples of the ashes, which will then be studied in the laboratory,” Andrei Osovsky, a genetics researcher at the Pomeranian Medical University, told AFP.
“In particular, we will be able to carry out DNA analyzes that will allow us to learn more about the identities of the victims,” such as studies carried out in the former Nazi camps in Sobibor or Treblinka, he added.
