Burials with the remains of 8,000 prisoners of the Soldau concentration camp found in Poland

Two mass graves containing 19 tons of human ashes have been discovered near the town of Dzialdowo in northeastern Poland, reports the Daily Mail. In 1939-1944 there was a concentration camp Dzialdowo (Soldau). According to experts, this is about 8,000 people - prisoners who were shot during the Second World War. The number of people was calculated based on the fact that on average the ashes of one person weigh 1.8 kg.

The mass graves were discovered in June, and this week an official commemoration ceremony took place in Dzialdowo. Employees of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), an organization that restores the stories of victims of Nazism and socialism, believe that those buried here were killed and hastily buried in 1939, when Soldau served as a camp where Polish Jews were taken. Around the same time, people with mental disabilities from nearby clinics were burned here in gas wagons. Subsequently, Soldau became a labor camp: its prisoners worked in the fields. In 1944, when Soviet troops entered Poland, the Nazi command announced Operation Aktion 1005: in an attempt to hide the massacres, the remains of concentration camp victims were dug out of mass graves, burned, and buried again.

This week, a monument with the inscription Nieznani meczennicy Polegli za polskosc was unveiled in Soldau. 1939-1944 - which in Polish means "Unknown martyrs who fell for Poland. 1939-1944". In total, between 13,000 and 20,000 people were killed in Soldau.

Geneticists from the Pomeranian Medical University intend to study the DNA from the ashes, which will reveal the identity of the victims.