A mass grave containing human ashes equivalent to 8,000 people has been discovered near a former Nazi concentration camp in Poland, according to the the country’s Institute of National Remembrance.
The institute, which investigates crimes committed during the Nazi occupation of Poland and the communist era, said the remains were unearthed near the Soldau concentration camp, now known as Dzialdowo, north of Warsaw.
Nazi Germany built the camp when it occupied Poland during World War II, using it as a place of transit, internment, and extermination for Jews, political opponents, and members of the Polish political elite.
Estimates have put the number of prisoners killed at Soldau at 30,000, but the true toll has never been established.
Andrzej Ossowski, a genetics researcher at the Pomeranian Medical University, said that samples from the ashes had been taken and would be studied in a laboratory.
“We can carry out DNA analysis, which will allow us to find out more about the identity of the victims,” he added, following similar studies at former Nazi camps at Sobibor and Treblinka.