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New Warsaw dig searches for victims of communist purges

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 20.05.2015 15:29
Excavation work is set to begin at Warsaw's Bródno Cemetery where historians believe dozens of slain WWII and post-war underground operatives were buried in a mass grave.
The N45 quarter of the Bródno Cemetery. Photo: PAP/Radek PietruszkaThe N45 quarter of the Bródno Cemetery. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka

The new dig is the latest in a series led by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) aimed at tracking down victims of communist repressions between 1944 and 1947.

Initial computer testing has indicated that at least 47 skeletons could be excavated at the mass grave.

The team, which is being led by Professor Krzysztof Szwagrzyk, will focus on the cemetery's so-called N45 quarter, and Szwagrzyk hopes work will commence before the month is out.

The graveyard was located near a prison that was in use while Moscow-backed communists spread their grip across Poland after the Red Army pushed out the Nazi German occupiers from the country in 1944/45. Today, a block of flats stands where the prison once was.

It is believed that veterans of Poland's wartime underground Home Army (AK) and post-war anti-communist formations such as Freedom and Independence (WiN) are among those buried at the site.

IPN has put forward several names, including Edward Pisula, a former regional leader of the AK's crack sabotage division Kedyw. (nh)

Source: PAP/Rzeczpospolita

tags: communism
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