Stalinist-era grave yields 117 bodies in Polish capital
27 Oct 2012 5:21 AM IST
The remains of 117 suspected victims of a 1948-56 Stalinist-era campaign of terror have been exhumed from a mass grave at Warsaw’s Powazki military cemetery and will undergo DNA testing, a Polish institute official said on Thursday.
‘These people were among the first to have rebuilt Poland (after World War II). They held high offices and comprised the Polish elite. And these were exactly the kind of people who were assassinated,’ said Lukasz Kaminski, the head of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance.
The project, which began in June, aims to find the remains of General Emil Fieldorf, the head of Poland’s anti-Nazi resistance army, and Witold Pilecki, a Polish partisan who voluntarily infiltrated the infamous Auschwitz Nazi German death camp in order to share his testimony with the world.
After the war, both resistance heroes were sentenced to death by Poland’s communist authorities loyal to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin after being accused of high treason. Exhumation at the Powazki site, which has ended for the winter, is set to resume in March.
The work is part of a nationwide research project launched in 2011 and focused on identifying the victims of Stalinism.
‘These people were among the first to have rebuilt Poland (after World War II). They held high offices and comprised the Polish elite. And these were exactly the kind of people who were assassinated,’ said Lukasz Kaminski, the head of Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance.
The project, which began in June, aims to find the remains of General Emil Fieldorf, the head of Poland’s anti-Nazi resistance army, and Witold Pilecki, a Polish partisan who voluntarily infiltrated the infamous Auschwitz Nazi German death camp in order to share his testimony with the world.
After the war, both resistance heroes were sentenced to death by Poland’s communist authorities loyal to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin after being accused of high treason. Exhumation at the Powazki site, which has ended for the winter, is set to resume in March.
The work is part of a nationwide research project launched in 2011 and focused on identifying the victims of Stalinism.
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