Nazi concentration camp
© DD News, IndiaDecades after WWII, archaeologists still discover bodies at Nazi concentration camp.
Archaeologists in Poland have uncovered a mass grave of prisoners at the Nazi death camp Gross-Rosen, on what is now the site of a memorial museum.

In September 2017, human remains were found in what used to be an anti-aircraft trench and conservation works were suspended. Archaeologists estimated the number of people buried there to exceed 300. "The discovery of human remains matches the account of one of the former prisoners of the camp, a Belgian man who was the camp doctor and was on the site during the last months before the liberation evacuation," said Doctor Katarzyna Pawlak-Weiss, a historian studying Nazi concentration camps located by occupying German forces in Poland. "In his report he mentioned 300 people buried here."

So far archaeologists have uncovered bones belonging to approximately 30 people, whom the team hopes to be able to identify. According to reports by survivors, the bodies of prisoners who died of illnesses and starvation were thrown into the trench in the last days of the camp's operation, but the first unearthed bones had what archaeologists think are markings from bullet wounds.

"After exhumation the remains of the people we found in this pit will be transported to the Forensic Medicine Institute in Wroclaw where an inspection and autopsy will be performed. This will be done in order to determine their gender, age, health condition, if this will be possible, and the cause of death," said prosecutor Konrad Bieron from Polish Institute of National Remembrance.

There is also a slight chance of identifying people buried in the mass grave. Unlike in Auschwitz, where the prisoners had the camp numbers tattooed on their forearms, in Gross-Rosen they carried small metal plates with numbers sewn to their uniforms. If archaeologists manage to find such plates, the historians may be able to assign the numbers with the names. Only a few documents concerning the camp survived and according to them and survivor testimonies it was established in August 1940 and inmates were mostly Jews from across Europe.

At the peak of its activity, the Konzentrazionslager Gross-Rosen had about 100 affiliates or sub-camps and was considered to be one of the most notorious Nazi labour camps. Many inmates died of emaciation and illnesses due to the hard labour in a quarry, shortage of food and poor sanitary conditions.

There were no gas chambers in Gross-Rosen, as in other Nazi death camps across Europe, but out of the total number of approximately 125000 prisoners an estimated 40,000 died, many of them also in death marches following the camp's evacuation in February 1945.

After the war none of the three camp commandants or staff members faced the trials for their activity in Gross-Rosen, although some were tried for crimes committed in other locations.