About 17.5 tons of human ashes have been discovered and unearthed near a former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which investigates Nazi and communist crimes, said on Wednesday.
The remains were unearthed at Ilowo Osada, in the Bialucki forest, near the site of the former concentration camp of Dzialdowo (Soldau in German, 150 km north of Warsaw), built during the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany during World War II.
From the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Soldau camp served as a place of transit, internment and extermination of political opponents, members of the Polish elites and Jews.
Some estimate the number of prisoners killed at Soldau at 30,000, but so far, historical sources do not allow this to be confirmed with certainty.
The discovery of this place “lets say that at least 8000 people died here“, said Tomasz Jankowski, prosecutor at the IPN.
Polish elites
This number is estimated thanks to the weight of the remains, two kilograms of ashes corresponding approximately to a body.
“The victims buried in this grave were probably murdered around 1939 and were mostly Polish elites“, selon M. Jankowski.
In 1944, Jewish prisoners were tasked with exhuming the bodies and setting them on fire, in order to erase the traces of Nazi war crimes.
“We took samples from the ashes, which will then be studied in the laboratory“, explained to AFP Andrzej Ossowski, researcher in genetics at the Medical University of Pomerania.
“In particular, we will be able to carry out DNA analyzes, which will make it possible to learn more about the identity of the victims.“, like the studies already carried out on the former Nazi camps of Sobibor or Treblinka, he added.