Mass Grave Found near Soldau (?)

[greatmystery]

'"(JTA) — The burnt remains of approximately 8,000 victims of the Nazis were unearthed in a mass grave outside the town of Działdowo, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance announced on Wednesday.

It is believed that the victims were killed in 1939, and most were likely members of the Polish political elite, according to IPN head investigator Tomasz Jankowski.

During the spring of 1944, in an attempt to hide the extent of their crimes, Nazis ordered Jewish prisoners of the Soldau concentration camp, where Jews and non-Jewish Poles were imprisoned, to dig up and burn the bodies.

“It’s the evidence of how thoroughly the Germans tried to obliterate the traces of genocide they committed in Eastern Europe,” IPN said in a statement.

The estimate of 8,000 victims was based on the weight of the remains, a gruesome tally of over 17 tons."

https://www.jta.org/2022/07/14/global/a ... poland/amp

What is your all's take on this? I don't know much about this but I question how they know the ashes belong to Nazi victims. The article doesn't say.

[Lamprecht]

So its not a "Holocaust" mass grave because it wasn't even Jews? 8,000 alleged victims, 17 tons, but where are the photos of the alleged burnt remains? The area had a POW camp and then it was used for political prisoners. They could have been victims of disease and the bodies burnt to prevent the spread. I don't see how this constitutes a "Holocaust" mass grave. Are there any photos?

[Reviso]

The JTA article says affirmatively : "During the spring of 1944, in an attempt to hide the extent of their crimes, Nazis ordered Jewish prisoners of the Soldau concentration camp, where Jews and non-Jewish Poles were imprisoned, to dig up and burn the bodies. "
But a BBC article says : "The bodies are thought to have been dug up and burned in a Nazi operation to hide traces of their murders."
(Paul Kirby, "Nazi Soldau: Ashes of 8,000 victims found in mass grave in Poland")
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-62161018

Many conjectures therein.

[Atigun]

How is it known that these cremains are from the spring of 1944?

[Merlin300]

The story seems to be that 8,000 "Polish elite" were killed in 1939...but dug up and burned to "destroy the evidence."
This left 17 toms of "ashes." As pointed out, there are no pictures.

What is interesting is the assertion that 8,000 bodies = 17 tons of ashes.
As the Polish Institute of National Remembrance said.“It’s the evidence of how thoroughly the Germans tried to obliterate the traces of genocide they committed in Eastern Europe,” . Let's compare the Soldau with Treblinka.

[Merlin300]

Soldau facts-
Originally Official figures were-"Some 13,000 prisoners out of 30,000 perished according to Polish official estimates."
Now "Experts believe that approximately 30,000 people were killed at Soldau,"

Importantly, Following the arrival of Red Army during the Soviet advance across Poland on 18 January 1945, the vacated Nazi camp in Działdowo was reinstated, this time by the NKVD secret police as a Soviet concentration camp for prisoners, both native German (the Reichsdeutsche) as well as Volksdeutsche from the regions of Pomerania, Warmia, Masuria and Mazowsze.

The example of Sachsenhausen should be considered...the Soviets murdered over 12,000 Germans in Sachsenhausen after May 1945.
When their bodies were uncovered in 1990 guess who got blamed? Yes, Germans. That was proven to be incorrect. Blame the Germans for Soviet crimes was the Katyn Gambit used at Nuremberg.

So where are the bodies of the Soviet Soldau victims?

[Iris]

The burnt remains of approximately 8,000 victims of the Nazis were unearthed in a mass grave outside the town of Działdowo, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance announced on Wednesday... The estimate of 8,000 victims was based on the weight of the remains, a gruesome tally of over 17 tons."
.

So the "burnt remains" of 8,000 "victims" leaves over 17 tons of evidence behind?

It’s the evidence of how thoroughly the Germans tried to obliterate the traces of genocide they committed in Eastern Europe,” IPN said in a statement.

Leaving over 17 tons of "burnt remains" in a single mass grave is considered "thoroughly obliterating the traces of genocide"?



Using the 8,000 " victims" / 17 tons of remains figures, do any of the lurking holocaustians care to do the math on the numbers alleged for:

Belzec: 600,000?

Chelmno: 300,000?

Ponary: 70,000?

Sobibor: 250,000?

Treblinka II: 925,000?

[Mongol]

So the "burnt remains" of 8,000 "victims" leaves over 17 tons of evidence behind?

That seems about right, because apparently the cremated remains of a single adult human body typically weigh around 2-3 kg.

So its not a "Holocaust" mass grave because it wasn't even Jews? 8,000 alleged victims, 17 tons, but where are the photos of the alleged burnt remains? The area had a POW camp and then it was used for political prisoners. They could have been victims of disease and the bodies burnt to prevent the spread. I don't see how this constitutes a "Holocaust" mass grave. Are there any photos?

By googling for `Tomasz Jankowski Andrzej Ossowski soldau site:*.pl`, I found photos of the excavation from the website of the university which employed the geneticist who oversaw the excavation: https://www.pum.edu.pl/aktualnosci/wyda ... _dziadowie.

Here's a machine-translated Polish article which provides a bit more details than the article by JTA (but it doesn't explain why they believed that the victims were killed in 1939 or that the bodies were dug up and burned in 1944) (https://plock.gosc.pl/doc/7693802.Nieza ... ia-wojenna):

> The results of the exhumation works in the Białucki Forest are groundbreaking, because they confirm the scale of the German crimes committed in the Działdowo-Soldau camp during World War II.
> This was assessed during a special press conference organized at the site of the search by Dr. Karol Nawrocki, president of the Institute of National Remembrance, and prosecutor Tomasz Jankowski, head of the Gdańsk IPN investigative division. Until now, there was an estimated number of around 1,000 victims in the social and media circulation, but there were also opinions that up to 30,000 were killed there. people. Therefore, already in 2019, the Institute of National Remembrance, at the request of the employees of the Bureau for Commemorating Struggle and Martyrdom, made an attempt to verify this number.
> - Until now, we could talk about 3,000 determined victims of this German crime, and today we know that it is at least 8,000. people - said the President of the Institute of National Remembrance during a special press conference held at the exhumation site.
> Works in the Białucki Forest were carried out from 4 to 10 July this year by a group of experts and specialists in the field of archeology and anthropology under the supervision of Dr. hab. Andrzej Ossowski from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin with the participation of attorney Tomasz Jankowski, head of the Departmental Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Gdańsk. As a result, two mass graves have been discovered so far: one 28 meters long and the other 12 meters long, both about 3 meters deep.
> - At this point, the Institute of National Remembrance found 17.5 tons of human remains, which means that approx. 8 thousand people are buried in this place. people murdered by the criminal German Nazi system, informed the prosecutor T. Jankowski.
> As the president of the Institute of National Remembrance pointed out, in the forest there was not so much burial as the abandonment of the remains of the victims, most of whom probably came from the Soldau camp in Działdowo, which was established as early as 1939. - In this camp, the victims died as part of the German, anti-Polish extermination action which was to deprive Poland of state elites, diplomats and clergy. It was not only a crime, but a regular theft. People whose ashes rest here were murdered and robbed - explained Dr. Karol Nawrocki.
> He also recalled that the perpetrators wanted to escape from responsibility. - In the spring of 1944, from March 1, the remains of people were excavated here, burned and ground, so that this crime would never see the light of day.
> During the conference, both the president of the Institute of National Remembrance and the prosecutor assured that the identification work of the victims and the search for similar mass graves of the victims of the Soldau camp would continue. There were mentioned 6 places in the forests of Działdowo, but no specific location. - The Institute of National Remembrance will never allow at least one victim to be forgotten - declared the president of the Institute of National Remembrance. It is not certain whether a cemetery will be built here or the exhumed human ashes will be deposited in the Działdowo cemetery. This decision, as explained by the head of the Institute of National Remembrance, will be discussed with local authorities and the environment.
> The prospect of further searches and identification of the victims is good news for the Płock diocese, because the resting place of the blessed bishops murdered in the Soldau camp is still unknown: the martyred bishops from Płock and the Capuchin Poor Clares from Przasnysz. Such a message awaits, among others Teresa Krowicka from Płock, as a child of a prisoner of the Działdowo camp, has been intensively involved for many years in promoting the cult of Płock martyrs and their commemoration.
> Let us remind you that both the area of ​​the Działdowo camp and the forests near the villages of Komorniki, Białuty and Żwirski Forest are marked with human blood.

After the Soviets "liberated" Soldau, they turned it into their own concentration camp for Poles, so I wonder if it's possible that the mass graves represent another Katyn-type situation (http://dzialdowo.caritas.pl/hospicjum/historia.html):

> The end of the war for this place did not mean the end of the human tragedy, because from the end of January to mid-September 1945, the NKVD Command and Distribution Camp of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in Działdowo [Nakazowo-Rozdzielczy NKWD Ludowego Komisariatu Spraw Wewnętrznych w Działdowie] was established here. Poles from Pomerania, Warmia and Mazury and Mazovia were transported to the camp, and many of them were transported from this facility deep into Russia. For years, there was no idea for the development of this facility.

I also found this by googling for the Polish name of the Soviet camp (https://epdz.powiatdzialdowski.pl/soldau-kl/):

> The German camp in Dziatdowo, indeed, ceased to exist on January 18, 1945, after the city was captured by the Soviet army, namely by the 31st and 32nd brigades, which were part of the 29th armored corps commanded by Major General Xenophon Matachow, but in its place was a camp Soviet, named the NKVD Command and Distribution Camp of the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs in Dziatdowo. The organizer and commandant of this camp from January 18 to October 1945 was NKVD Major Witalim Szitow. In the camp, the Soviets imprisoned, apart from the Germans, also Poles who during the occupation obtained the 3rd German group, members of the Home Army and opponents of the Polish "new authority". The NKVD Command and Distribution Camp in Dziatdowo did not exist for long, because it was closed already around October 1945.

An article about the Soviet concentration camps in Poland says that "the number of murdered and martyred in prisons and labor camps in the years 1944-1956 has been estimated by historians at over half a million", and that for example in the Toszek camp, "approximately 3,300 prisoners died within seven months, and approximately 1,000 people died of exhaustion shortly after being released from prison" (https://sablane.pl/artykuly/nkwd-na-ter ... swiatowej/).

A German-speaking Pole who was detained in Auschwitz by the Soviets after liberation said that so many inmates died of hunger and disease that the Soviets had to bury them in a mass grave: "It turned out that the native safes are worse for the prisoners of the camp than the Soviets. - It was an ordeal. There was nothing to eat. They ate us cabbage leaves and bran. We got one slice of bread in the afternoon when we came home from work. It was so thin that if you looked at it against the light, you could see everything - Nycz recalls. The typhus epidemic ravaged the camp, prisoners died by the hundreds. The security officers ordered to throw the bodies into a pit by the Soła river and cover them with lime. Today no one knows exactly where that pit was. [...] They didn't have to kill us. Hunger, exhaustion, and typhus did it for them. People died like flies." (https://tygodnik.dorzeczy.pl/115778/2/j ... leniu.html) She said that "there were no Germans here, all the prisoners were Silesians, whom the authorities considered, for various reasons, to be enemies of the people, collaborators, and traitors", even though Polish Wikipedia says that Auschwitz was turned into a transit camp for Germans (https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz-Birkenau#Obozy_przej%C5%9Bciowe_dla_Niemc%C3%B3w).

[Mongol]

Mattogno's book about the Einsatzgruppen mentions a source for the claim that the bodies were exhumed and burned in 1944 (https://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=39):

> Spektor (1990b, p. 169) asserts that
> > "this county known under the name of Ziechenau [sic] was incorporated into East Prussia, and a camp for Poles was opened in Dziatdowo (Soldau). About 3000 prisoners were murdered there and buried in the vicinity of the camp. After the war one of the prisoners, Stephan Runo, testified before the regional Commission for Investigation of the Nazi Crimes, that in April 1944 a special group of prisoners from the camp opened the graves and burned the bodies near the village of Białut. After the work was over the prisoners were liquidated."
> His source is an article in Polish by Janusz Gumkowski, published in 1958. The author asserts that Dziatdowo was a transit camp through which 20,000 people passed. Between February 1940 and January 1945, approximately 3,000 persons were killed there, after which they were buried in the forest near Komorniki (a village located some 3 km northeast of Dzialdowo), in the Jewish cemetery of Dzialdowo, in the forest near Biatuti (a village approximately 20 km east of Dzialdowo) and Bursz (a village approximately 15 km south of Dzialdowo) and in another forest near the city ("lasek Zwirskiego"). Gumkowski then writes that
> > "over the course of the exhumation of a part of the mass graves effected in 1947, approximately 500 bodies were extracted and transferred to the cemetery. The bodies examined showed that the cause of death of the victims was gunshot wounds."
> In this context, he makes reference to the witness cited by Spektor:
> > "From the testimony of Stefan Runo, interrogated during the investigations conducted by the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes, it is apparent that in April 1944, such an action [action 1005] was effected in the forest near Biatuti. A part of the bodies buried there was exhumed and burned by the inmates of Dzialdowo Camp. A few dozen prisoners who had carried out this work were liquidated upon termination of the work." (Gumkowski, p. 87)
> Trying to make these alleged operations form part of "Aktion 1005" is clearly senseless, because, instead of exhuming and cremating all the alleged 3,000 bodies, the Kommando operated in one single location (Biatuti) and only opened a part of the graves. The other bodies were obviously neglected. If, then, the Polish Commission found only 500 bodies in spite of all the witnesses, one may consider that these were the only victims of the camp.
> The encyclopaedic dictionary of the _Central Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland_, asserts under the heading "Dziatdowo" that 300 inmates died of typhus and 300 were shot in this camp, but it then nevertheless adopts the figure of 3,000 victims based on Gumkowski's article. The article reiterates that approximately 20,000 inmates transited this camp until 1941, including Jews (Pilichowski et al., p. 165).

The source was Spektor 1990b, "Aktion 1005 - Effacing the Murder of Millions," in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1990, pp. 157-173.

[Lamprecht]

By googling for `Tomasz Jankowski Andrzej Ossowski soldau site:*.pl`, I found photos of the excavation from the website of the university which employed the geneticist who oversaw the excavation: https://www.pum.edu.pl/aktualnosci/wyda ... _dziadowie.

I appreciate that they actually dug around and photographed the pit this time. That's more than we've ever obtained from any of the so-called "Extermination camps with gas chambers."

[hermod]

So the guys who had exhumed and exposed the Katyn mass graves in 1943 believed in 1944 that dumping 17 tons of ashes into an emptied mass grave would make any trace of a mass execution vanish???

Why the hard work of exhumation and cremation without an easy ash scattering disposal?

[Merlin300]

I appreciate that they actually dug around and photographed the pit this time. That's more than we've ever obtained from any of the so-called "Extermination camps with gas chambers."

The Believers have constantly dug around desperately trying to find any evidence of mass graves or mass extermination.
Odd photographs and confusing claims are par for the course.

"Judge" Zdzisław Łukaszkiewicz report on Majdanek is an example of "Believer Forensics," he claimed that his investigation proved 350,000 dead at Majdanek. (The current figure is 78,000)
His investigation of Treblinka found remains of semi-cremated bodies in 3 pits and several pits of papers and garbage. (with badly taken photos)
Łukaszkiewicz took pictures of 5 or 6 human skulls that had not been burnt nor showed any sign of trauma. The record and papers in the pits
were NOT preserved. The bodies were NOT preserved. Even so Believers point to the "Report" as if it was anything more than an investigation
which destroyed evidence.
"His estimate of the total number of the victims of gassing was based on the already proven record of 156 transports with an average of 5,000 prisoners each.[3][4] Many published results of his enquiries are still considered paramount to the understanding of the Final Solution, even though some specifics have also been revised by modern science.
We should all remember Dr Caroline Sturdy Colls. ridiculous farce of finding the "gas chamber of Treblinka" based on the trademark stamped
on a tile.

To bring this back to Soldau,
1. It seems clear that the Soviets used the camp after the War to detain "enemies."
2. That thousands of people died at the hands of the Communists.
3. That the Soviets buried the bodies.
4. That none of the newly found bodies have been attributed to the Communists.
5. That there are more bodies found than believed to have died at Soldau during the German occupation of the area.
6. That it has been common among Believers to attribute any bodies discovered to the Germans.

In any event, the claim of mass killings of Poles in 1939 seems unusual.

[Mongol]

I wasn't sure what method they're supposed to have used to burn the corpses. Andrzej Ossowski who oversaw the excavation said: "It was especially important for us to establish the mechanism that was used to hide the size of the crime, to use an industrial method of incinerating the remains, and then to use a ball mill to destroy all bone fragments." (https://www.pum.edu.pl/aktualnosci/wyda ... _dziadowie)

However in Stefan Runo's testimony, he said that he was responsible for stacking wood on piles on which the corpses were burned (https://warmia.mazury.pl/images/Departa ... wskiej.pdf):

> Według zeznań świadków, w 1940 roku, większa liczba więźniów niemieckiego obozu Soldau w Działdowie była kierowana do lasu w Białutach, oddalonego o 3 km od obo- zu. Prawdopodobnie zamordowano tutaj około 12 000 osób, w tym 58 księży i 1500 Żydów. Zeznanie świadka (Stefan Runo), cyt.: „[...] w odległości 3 km od Białut w lesie odbywały się masowe egzekucje Polaków i Żydów. Słyszałem strzały. Leśnik Niemiec Kirschon, który obecnie przebywa w Westfalii poinformował mnie, że zlikwidowano około 15 tysięcy osób Polaków i Żydów. Zwłoki leżały w mogiłach. Oddział I - Polacy, Oddział V - Żydzi. W 1944 roku w kwietniu, Niemcy w ubraniach czarnych z trupi- mi główkami (było ich 3), oraz żandarmi polowi w liczbie 17 przy pomocy 32 ludzi z obozu (Działdowo) palili zwłoki znajdujące się w mogile Oddział I oraz Oddział V (zwłoki palili tylko więźniowie). Byłem wówczas zatrudniony przy układaniu drewna na stosy, na których palono zwłoki. Dziennie palono około 150 zwłok, a palono je przez cały miesiąc. Następnie popioły wszystkich zamordowanych zostały zakopane”[361].

Machine translation:

> According to the testimonies of witnesses, in 1940, a greater number of prisoners of the German Soldau camp in Działdowo were directed to the forest in Białuty, 3 km away from the camp. About 12,000 people, including 58 priests and 1,500 Jews, were probably murdered here. Testimony of a witness (Stefan Runo), quotation: "[...] mass executions of Poles and Jews took place in the forest 3 km away from Białuty. I heard shots. The forester of Germany, Kirschon, who is currently in Westphalia, informed me that about 15,000 Poles and Jews had been liquidated. The corpse lay in the graves. Department I - Poles, Department V - Jews. In April 1944, the Germans in black clothes with death's heads (there were 3 of them), and 17 field gendarmes, with the help of 32 people from the camp (Działdowo), burned the corpses in the grave, Department I and V (the bodies were burnt only prisoners). At that time, I was employed in stacking wood on piles on which the corpses were burnt. About 150 corpses were burned daily, and they were burned for a whole month. Then the ashes of all the murdered were buried."[361]

Footnote 361 is "Zob. AIPN, sygn. akt: GK 164/333", which means "See archive of Institute of National Remembrance, signature (identifier) act: GK 164/333".

By googling for `"GK 164/333"`, I found another article which references Runo's testimony (https://docplayer.pl/19054121-Oboz-konc ... rafii.html):

> Świadek Piotr Judycki zeznający przed Okręgową Komisją Badania Zbrodni niemieckich w Warszawie w obecności p.o. sędzi Haliny Wereńko, w dniu 17 września 1947 r. mówił: „Mieszkam 600-700 metrów od lasku komornickiego. W czasie od 1941 r. do 1942 r. w lasku komornickim odbywały się częste egzekucje więźniów z Działdowa. Mieszkając w pobliżu słyszałem strzały z karabinów maszynowych. słyszałem również jak auta zajeżdżały do lasku komornickiego. Ludzi przywożono często do lasku w Komornikach, prawie co drugi dzień. Przywożono ludzi z rana około godziny 10.00, a strzały słyszałem pod wieczór. samochodów zaś, ani świeżych mogił nie widziałem, gdyż bałem się w okresie okupacji udać się do lasku. słyszałem z lasku komornickiego głosy więźniów, którzy błagali niemców, aby wypuścili ich nago i aby ich nie zabijali. Były to głosy dzieci kobiet i mężczyzn” [7].
> Podobnie Klara Weronika Krajewska, która w czasie okupacji widziała te groby, przed tą samą Komisją potwierdza: „Prawie każdego dnia z lasku Komorniki we wsi Komorniki słychać było odgłosy strzałów. [...] W końcu okupacji niemieckiej (daty nie pamiętam), prawie co drugi dzień, samochód z obozu w Działdowie przywoził zwłoki do lasu, gdzie je zakopywano. Mój mąż obecnie nie żyjący widział iż przywożono nagie zwłoki” [8].
> Natomiast Maksym Zembrzuski, wójt gminy filice, po uprzednim zebraniu informacji od mieszkańców wsi Komorniki i przeprowadzonym oglądzie terenu w dniu 16 września 1947 r. zeznawał, że zwłok pochowanych w Komornikach jest około 10 tysięcy. Tenże świadek twierdził, że większa liczba więźniów była kierowana do lasu w Białutach [9].
> Z kolei stefan runo 16 września 1947 r. zeznał: „W 1940 r. w odległości 3 km od Białut w lesie odbywały się masowe egzekucje Polaków i Żydów. słyszałem strzały. Leśnik niemiec Kirschhorn, który obecnie przebywa w Westfalii poinformował mnie, że zlikwidowano około 15 tysięcy osób Polaków i Żydów. Zwłoki leżały w dwóch mogiłach. Oddział I Polacy i Oddział V Żydzi. W 1944 r., w kwietniu, niemcy w ubraniach czarnych ztrupimi głowami (było ich trzech), oraz żandarmi polowi w liczbie 17 przy pomocy 32 ludzi z obozu palili zwłoki znajdujące się w mogile Oddział I oraz Oddział V. Byłem wówczas zatrudniony przy układaniu drewna na stosy, na których palono zwłoki. Dziennie palono 150 zwłok, a palono je przez cały miesiąc. Następnie popioły wszystkich zamordowanych zostały zakopane w grobie Oddziału V. [...] Od żony niemca Kirschhorna dowiedziałem się, że opowiadał jej jeden z gestapowców, że w mogiłach Oddziału I i V leżało około 15 tysięcy zwłok Polaków i Żydów, którzy rzekomo nie chcieli pracować i zajmowali się szmuglem. Prostuję, zwłoki palili nie żandarmi, lecz więźniowie dozorowani przez żandarmów”[10]
> Dokumenty archiwalne wskazują jeszcze inne miejsca masowych grobów osób zamordowanych w obozie Soldau. Pierwszym z nich jest tzw. lasek (las) Zwiarskiego [11], w pamięci mieszkańców Działdowa i w niektórych opracowaniach utrwalony też jako lasek Żwirskiego. Trzeba zaznaczyć, że w świetle zachowanych przedwojennych opracowań najbardziej właściwa wydaje się jednak nazwa lasek Zwierskiego, pochodząca od nazwiska właściciela majątku [12]. Taką nazwę potwierdziły rozmowy autora niniejszego opracowania z rodziną Leonarda Zwierskiego oraz udostępniona autorowi zachowana, bardzo bogata, odnośna rodzinna dokumentacja. W lasku Zwierskiego znajdują się szczątki około 1000 osób [13].
> Kolejne miejsca pochówku wskazane w archiwaliach zgromadzonych przez Instytut Pamięci Narodowej to: cmentarz żydowski pod Księżym Dworem (gdzie zostało pochowanych około 300 osób), boisko obozu Soldau (dawny plac koszarowy, gdzie spoczęło około 200 osób) [14], a także las w Burszu (w którym rozstrzelano i pochowano 48 osób) [15].
> Również w Nadleśnictwie Państwowym Dwukoły dwaj robotnicy leśni odkryli przypadkowo na wiosnę 1948 r. masowe groby na tzw. uroczysku Narzym-Dwukoły. Groby te porastał las świerkowy. Należy przypuszczać, że nie odkrytych na skutek zamaskowania w ten sposób grobów jest więcej [16]. Warto też dodać, iż w maju i czerwcu 1940 roku (dokładnie pomiędzy 28 maja i 8 czerwca) w obozie Soldau zamordowano pacjentów zakładów dla umysłowo chorych w Kortowie, Karolewie, Tapiawie i Allenburgu w liczbie 1558 Niemców i około Polaków [17].
> W świetle zachowanych w Instytucie Pamięci Narodowej dokumentów ogólną liczbę więźniów obozu Soldau należy szacować na około 50 tysięcy, a przeciętny stan zaludnienia na 1000 osób. Więzieni byli Polacy, Żydzi polscy, Francuzi z Belgii, Belgowie, Rosjanie i Niemcy [18]. Tak między innymi zeznawał przed sędzią Haliną Wareńko, w dniu 16 września 1947 roku świadek Piotr Pszenny, inspektor szkolny powiatu działdowskiego. Dane powyższe nie są jednak oparte na dokumentach, lecz zostały ustalone na podstawie relacji byłych więźniów obozu [19].
> Reasumując trzeba więc stwierdzić, iż biorąc pod uwagę dane zawarte w materiałach archiwalnych i drukowanych liczba 3 tysiące podana przez J. Gumkowskiego wydaje się być bardzo zaniżona.
> Gdy chodzi o polskich duchownych i osoby zakonne, to w obozie koncentracyjnym w Dachau zostało zamordowanych 798 takich osób, w Oświęcimiu 167, w Soldau 86, w Sachsenchausen 85, w Gusen 71, w Stutthofie 40. Tak więc, pod względem eksterminacji polskiego duchowieństwa i osób zakonnych, obóz zagłady Soldau z liczbą 86 księży, zakonników i sióstr zakonnych zajmuje trzecie miejsce w niemieckiej polityce eksterminacyjnej. Dodajmy, iż z zachowanych dokumentów nie wynika, aby w działdowskim obozie oprócz tych 86 obywateli polskich, stracili życie jacyś duchowni bądź osoby zakonne pochodzący z innych państw [20].

Machine translation:

> Witness Piotr Judycki testifying before the District Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Warsaw in the presence of the acting judge Halina Wereńko, on September 17, 1947 said: "I live 600-700 meters from the Komorniki forest. From 1941 to 1942, prisoners from Działdowo were often executed in the Komorniki forest. Living nearby, I heard machine gun fire. I also heard cars coming to the Komorniki forest. People were often brought to the woods in Komorniki, almost every other day. People were brought in in the morning around 10.00 am, and I heard shots in the evening. I did not see cars or fresh graves, because I was afraid to go to the forest during the occupation. I heard from the woods of Komorniki the voices of the prisoners begging the Germans to let them out naked and not to kill them. These were the voices of the children of women and men "[7].
> Similarly, Klara Weronika Krajewska, who saw these graves during the occupation, before the same Commission confirms: "Almost every day from the Komorniki forest in the village of Komorniki, you could hear the sounds of shots. [...] At the end of the German occupation (I do not remember the date), almost every other day, a car from the camp in Działdowo brought the bodies to the forest, where they were buried. My husband, now dead, saw that naked bodies were brought" [8].
> On September 16, 1947, Maksym Zembrzuski, the mayor of the Filice commune, testified that there were about 10,000 bodies buried in Komorniki after collecting information from the inhabitants of the village of Komorniki and inspecting the area. The same witness claimed that a greater number of prisoners were directed to the forest in Białuty [9].
> In turn, Stefan Runo on September 16, 1947 testified: "In 1940 mass executions of Poles and Jews took place in the forest, 3 km away from Białuty. I heard the shots. The German forester Kirschhorn, who is currently in Westphalia, informed me that about 15,000 Poles and Jews had been liquidated. The corpses laid in two graves: Branch I for Poles and Branch V for Jews. In April 1944, Germans in black clothes with death's heads (there were three of them), and 17 field gendarmes, with the help of 32 people from the camp, burned the bodies in the grave, Division I and Division V. I was then employed in arranging wood on the piles on which the bodies were burned. 150 corpses were burned daily, and they were burned for a whole month. Then the ashes of all the murdered were buried in the grave of Division V [...] From the wife of a German, Kirschhorn, I learned that one of the Gestapo officers told her that in the graves of Division I and V there were about 15,000 bodies of Poles and Jews who allegedly did not want to to work or were involved in smuggling. I straighten it, the bodies were burned not by the gendarmes, but by prisoners supervised by gendarmes."[10]
> Archival documents indicate other places of mass graves of people murdered in the Soldau camp. The first is the so-called Lasek (forest) by Zwiarski [11], in the memory of the inhabitants of Działdowo and in some studies also recorded as the Żwirski forest. It should be noted that, in the light of pre-war studies, the most appropriate name seems to be the name of Zwierski's woods, derived from the name of the property owner [12]. This name was confirmed by the author's interviews with the family of Leonard Zwierski and the well-preserved, very rich, relevant family documentation made available to the author. There are the remains of about 1,000 people in the Zwierski Forest [13].
> Other burial sites indicated in the archives collected by the Institute of National Remembrance are: the Jewish cemetery near Księży Dwór (where about 300 people were buried), the field of the Soldau camp (former barracks square, where about 200 people were buried) [14], and a forest in Bursh (where 48 people were shot and buried) [15].
> In the spring of 1948, two forest workers accidentally discovered mass graves in the so-called Narzym-Dwukoły wilderness. These graves were overgrown with spruce forest. It should be assumed that there are more graves that have not been discovered as a result of masking them in this way [16]. It is also worth adding that in May and June 1940 (exactly between May 28th and June 8th) in the Soldau camp, 1,558 Germans and around Poles were murdered in the mental institutions in Kortowo, Karolewo, Tapiawa and Allenburg [17].
> According to the documents preserved at the Institute of National Remembrance, the total number of prisoners in the Soldau camp should be estimated at around 50,000, and the average population per 1,000 people. Poles, Polish Jews, French from Belgium, Belgians, Russians and Germans were imprisoned [18]. This was, inter alia, testified in front of judge Halina Wareńko, on September 16, 1947 witness Piotr Pszenny, the school inspector of the Działdowo district. The above data, however, are not based on documents, but were established on the basis of reports by former prisoners of the camp [19].
> To sum up, it must be said that taking into account the data contained in archival and printed materials, the number of 3,000 given by J. Gumkowski seems to be very understated.

English Wikipedia says that "some 10,000-13,000 prisoners died" in Soldau, "out of a total of 30,000". However Stefan Runo said that the forester Kirschhorn said that about 15,000 Poles and Jews were liquidated in a forest near Białuty, and Runo also said that forester Kirschhorn's wife said that a Gestapo officer said that "in the graves of Division I and V there were about 15,000 bodies of Poles and Jews who allegedly did not want to work and deal with smuggling" (where later in the same article, the word that is translated as "smuggling" is defined as "illegally buying or selling food"). So if they now found the ashes of approximately 8,000 bodies, then what happened to the other half of the bodies? Did they have to tone down Runo's number of corpses because it exceeded the total reported death toll of Soldau?

Mattogno was wondering how come only the bodies in Białuty were exhumed and buried if there were other burial sites as well, but I think it's just that Runo's testimony dealt with the forest near Białuty because that's where he himself is supposed to have been employed to burn the bodies. So I don't know what's supposed to have happened to the bodies that were buried in the Komorniki or Zwierski forests.

dumping 17 tons of ashes into an emptied mass grave

I don't know if they claim that the ashes were dumped into an emptied mass grave, or if they're supposed to have dug a new hole for the ashes. However the testimony of Stefan Runo above actually says that "the ashes of all the murdered were buried in the grave of Division V".

[Mongol]

Earlier in 2019, it was reported that the same team had found the remains of up to 1000 people in the Białuty forest (https://gdansk.ipn.gov.pl/pl2/aktualnos ... -2019.html):

> From 26 to 31 October this year, head of the Gdańsk investigative division of the Institute of National Remembrance, prosecutor Tomasz Jankowski, together with a group of experts and specialists in the field of archeology and anthropology under the supervision of dr hab. Andrzej Ossowski and Piotr Brzeziński carries out exhumations of victims of German crimes at the beginning of World War II.
> The exhumation activities are carried out in a forest complex near the town of Białuty, where in July 2019 a team of experts led by the IPN prosecutor revealed the outline of a burial pit with numerous human remains with visible changes due to high temperature, the so-called crematory grave.
> The discovery of the place where the body was incinerated and where the ashes were deposited with human remains is a unique discovery in research on German crimes committed during World War II. Until now, such a place has never been tested with the use of modern scientific apparatus. This research may become a breakthrough stage in research into German crimes. The found place is the first tangible evidence of the German action carried out in 1944 to cover up the traces of its criminal activities (Aktion 1005), during which the bodies of the murdered were dug up from mass graves by prisoners and burned or otherwise destroyed.
> The remains of up to 1000 people can be found in the disclosed and possible subsequent pits. On October 26 and 28, 2019, as a result of the first exhumation activities, a number of artifacts such as Polish uniform buttons, religious medals, wedding rings and other personal belongings belonging to prisoners of the extermination camp in Działdowo were excavated. So far, the remains of at least 10 victims of German terror have been excavated.
> After the exhumation, further research was carried out by a team of experts from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin under the supervision of dr hab. Andrzej Ossowski, an attempt will be made to determine the minimum number of victims. The next task will be to try to establish the mechanism of the death assignment and to investigate the methods used by German forces to conceal their crimes.
> Beginning in 1942, an action was ordered by the Main Security Office of the Third Reich to dig up former mass graves and burn the excavated bodies. In April 1944, one such action was carried out in the forest near Białuty, some of the buried bodies were taken by prisoners from the Działdowo camp and burned. An undetermined number of prisoners who performed this work were killed after its completion.
> In April 1944, near Działdowo, in the village of Białuty, the then criminal counselor of the SS Sturmbannfűhrer and the head of the secret national police department (Gestapo), the Olsztyn Branch, on the order of the inspector of the Security Police and Special Service in Königsberg, ordered his subordinates to shoot individually in his presence they shot 15 prisoners in the neck and burned their bodies, and over a thousand people employed in the exhumation and burning of the bodies were buried in several mass graves in the Baluca forest (Aktion 1005), who had to be removed as the dead witnesses of the nationalist mass liquidation.
> The removal of mass graves was carried out as part of an action under the code name (Aktion 1005). Work on the exhumation of the graves began on March 1, 1944. SS officers supervised the prisoners. The prisoners were digging up the graves, taking the bodies out and putting them on the stake, with the layer of the bodies covered with a layer of logs. The piles were then poured over with tar, oil and gasoline and then burned. The works took about 4-8 weeks in total. After the graves were emptied and the corpses burned, the ash was buried. After burial, the area was leveled and reforested. In mid-April 1944, it was decided that the prisoners would be shot. In the morning, the prisoners were loaded into a truck and taken to the Białystok forest. With a blanket or a tent, the so-called the wall. Then the prisoners were taken out of the truck one by one, each time the prisoner walked towards the wall.

I think this part is either an error in the machine translation or not what they intended to write: "over a thousand people employed in the exhumation and burning of the bodies were buried in several mass graves in the Baluca forest". In the previous paragraph, the article said that an undetermined number of prisoners who performed this the work of exhuming and burning the corpses were killed. And Runo said that 32 prisoners helped with exhuming the graves and burning the bodies. Spektor wrote that the prisoners who helped with burning the bodies were liquidated: "3000 prisoners were murdered there [in Soldau] and buried in the vicinity of the camp. After the war one of the prisoners, Stephan Runo, testified before the regional Commission for Investigation of the Nazi Crimes, that in April 1944 a special group of prisoners from the camp opened up the graves and burned the bodies near the village of Biatut. After the work was over the prisoners were liquidated.[43]" (https://hi.booksc.eu/book/43265583/68d180 / https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z9FSPl ... Q28Pd7HO8Y) But in the two articles I quoted in my previous post, they omitted the detail that the prisoners who helped with burning the bodies were killed after the work was over, which might be because it introduces the question of why Runo survived to tell his story even though he said that he was employed in stacking wood on piles on which the corpses were burned.

Another article from 2019 says that they excavated about 1.5 tons of human ashes (https://gdansk.ipn.gov.pl/pl2/aktualnos ... okoli.html):

> From 26 to 31 October 2019, attorney Tomasz Jankowski, head of the Branch Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Gdańsk, together with a group of experts and specialists in the field of archeology and anthropology, exhumed the victims of German crimes committed at the beginning of the occupation in the vicinity of Białuta.
> As a result of the work of the investigative department of the Institute of National Remembrance, human remains of at least 50 people, including children, were discovered. During the works, a place was discovered where the remains of a cremation pile containing ashes, fragments of burned human bones and small personal items were dumped. The ashes and debris were carried in a wooden structure, a kind of chest, the remains of which were also exposed. About 1.5 tons of human ashes were excavated, a number of fragments of burnt bones from at least several hundred people and over a quarter of a thousand artifacts.
> The items found were mainly: scapulars and other Catholic medals, spoons, knives and crosses, wedding rings, rings, rosary and its elements, fragments of glasses, shoes and their elements, hairpins, buckles for belts and suspenders, a toothbrush, pre-war Polish coins of various denominations, a number of buttons, including a crowned eagle, bullets and scales, keys and many other personal items belonging to the victims of the Działdowo camp.
> At the request of the prosecutor, the team of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin plans to conduct comprehensive examinations of the revealed human remains. Selected bone fragments will be selected for DNA testing. The aim of the research is to determine the methods of obliterating the traces of the crime, to determine the mechanism of the victims' deaths, and to attempt to identify them.

The articles from 2019 also include photos of the excavation, but I can't tell from the photos if it's the excavation site that they reported about this year. But if it's the same site, then why did they only find 1.5 tons of ashes in 2019 but 17 tons in 2022? From their description of the site they excavated in 2019, it seems it's the same site that's mentioned in Runo's testimony. But Runo's testimony gives the impression that the ashes of approximately 15,000 bodies were buried in the grave that was earlier used to house the corpses of Division V. So why didn't they find the ashes of approximately 15,000 bodies in 2019?

In case the articles from 2019 get deleted, here's copies of the photos from the articles:



And here's the photos from 2022:



Edit: I think they're different sites, because both sites are next to a road, but in a video about the 2019 dig, there's aerial footage where you can see that the site is further from the road than the 2022 site (https://gdansk.ipn.gov.pl/pl2/aktualnos ... -2019.html):

[Mongol]

Actually I think the photos of the excavations from 2019 and 2022 are from the same site after all, because the distance from the road to the boundary of the rectangular excavated area is about 3.5 car's lengths in both cases. And in the aerial photo from 2022 which is taken from higher up, the area of the light green trees at the bottom of the photo has similar shape as in the aerial footage from 2019.

By googling for `site:ipn.gov.pl białuty`, I found a press release about the the 2022 excavation by the Institute of National Remembrance: https://gdansk.ipn.gov.pl/pl2/aktualnosci/167903,Komunikat-ws-odkrycia-niemieckiej-zbrodni-w-Dzialdowie-Gdansk-13-lipca-2022.html. Its title is translated as "Communication on the discovery of the German crime in Działdowo - Gdańsk, July 13, 2022" and its author is Tomasz Jankowski, "Head of the Departmental Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation in Gdańsk":

> From 4 to 10 July 2022, the Head of the Gdańsk IPN investigative division, together with a group of experts and specialists in the field of archeology and anthropology under the supervision of dr hab. Andrzej Ossowski from the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin made a groundbreaking discovery of the place of depositing human remains of at least 8,000 victims of German terror. Almost 17 tons of human ashes were revealed.
> Procedural activities were carried out in a forest complex near the town of Białuty. The Białuty Forest was a place of mass extermination of the Polish population during World War II. The conducted works led to the unveiling of a cremation heap, the place where the ashes were deposited after the German crime carried out in 1944, consisting in obliterating the traces of the war genocide in Eastern Europe.
> The found place is tangible evidence of the German action carried out in 1944 to cover up the traces of its criminal activities (Aktion 1005), during which the bodies of the murdered were excavated from mass graves by prisoners and burned or otherwise destroyed.
> Beginning in 1942, an action was ordered by the Main Security Office of the Third Reich to dig up former mass graves and burn the excavated bodies. In April 1944, one such action was carried out in the forest near Białuty, some of the buried bodies were taken by prisoners from the Działdowo camp and then burned. An undetermined number of prisoners who performed this work were killed after its completion.
> In April 1944, near Działdowo, East Prussia in the village of Białuty, as the then criminal counselor of the SS Sturbannfuhrer and head of the secret national police department (Gestapo), Branch in Olsztyn, on the order of the inspector of the Security Police and Special Service in Königsberg, ordered his subordinates to presence, they shot 15 prisoners one by one by shooting in the neck and burned their bodies. Employed in the exhumation and burning of corpses, more than a thousand people laid in several mass graves in the Białuty forest (Excavation Action "Special Commission 1005"), had to be removed as the dead witnesses of the nationalist mass liquidation.
> The removal of mass graves was carried out as part of an action code-named "Kommando 1005". Work on the exhumation of the graves began on March 1, 1944. SS officers supervised the prisoners. The prisoners were digging up the graves, taking out the corpses and putting them on a pile, with the layer of corpses covered with a layer of logs. The piles were then poured over with tar, oil and gasoline and then burned. The works took about 4-8 weeks in total. After the graves were emptied and the corpses burned, the ash was buried. After burial, the area was leveled and reforested. In mid-April 1944, it was decided that the prisoners would be shot. In the morning, the prisoners were loaded into a truck and taken to the Białystok forest. With a blanket or a tent, the so-called the wall. Then the prisoners were extracted from the truck one by one, each time the prisoner walked towards the wall. In front of the wall, an SS member carried out an execution by shooting a firearm in the head.
> The conducted archaeological work dispels doubts as to the minimum number of victims of the German camp in Działdowo. There are still questions about how many people were actually murdered in the Działdowo camp. The number of murdered people oscillates between 1 and 30 thousand people. The discovery of 17,000 tons of human ashes indicates at least 8,000 people murdered in the Działdowo camp.
> During the work, a number of personal items were also found indicating that they belonged to the victims of the Działdowo camp, of Polish nationality and of the Catholic faith. Most of the items are personal belongings, remnants of clothing and footwear that do not have any property value. The exhumed corpses had to be looted before being thrown on the stake.
> 75 years after these atrocious events, we can see how effective the adopted method of concealing the crime has turned out to be. Examination of this place by experts of various specialties will allow you to move from the stage of evidence to the stage of irrefutable evidence. In the public space, the terms "empty graves" are still used by "pseudoscientists" who question the crimes committed against Polish citizens during World War II. The works of experts and further results of the investigation will constitute irrefutable evidence of the crime, and the results of the research will be representative for other places of this type in the country.

Runo said that the bodies were piled on top of logs, but Jankowski said that logs were put on top of the bodies: "The prisoners were digging up the graves, taking out the corpses and putting them on a pile, with the layer of corpses covered with a layer of logs. The piles were then poured over with tar, oil and gasoline and then burned." But I guess there could be layers of wood both below and above the bodies, because at least that's the case with some Hindu cremation pyres (https://www.google.com/search?q=hindu%20cremation%20pyre&tbm=isch).

In Mattogno's book about Bełżec, he estimated that an open air cremation would produce about 6 times as much wood ash as human ash (https://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php?page_id=9):

> The incineration of a corpse in a crematorium oven yields about 5% of ash having a specific gravity of 0.5. For a cremation in the open air the quantity of ash goes up considerably. The wood burnt produces about 8% of ash with a specific gravity of 0.34. Therefore, the alleged 600,000 victims would have left behind (600,000×450×0.05=) 1,350,000 kg or 1,350 tons of ash, with a volume of (1,350÷0.5=) 2,700 cubic meters, whereas the wood ash would have amounted to (96,000×0.08=) 7,680 tons, corresponding to about 22,600 cubic meters. Altogether then, some (1,350+7,680=) 9,030 tons or (2,700+22,600=) 25,300 cubic meters of ash would have resulted from the enormous incinerations.
> However, the total volume of the graves identified by Kola is 21,310 cubic meters. Thus, even if all of the graves had been full to the brim with ash unmixed with sand, there would have been (25,300-21,310=) about 4,000 cubic meters of pure ash left over, enough to fill some 290 trucks or 60 railroad freight cars.
> But the graphs of the analyses of the 137 drill cores presented by Kola show that the ash in the graves is normally intermingled with sand, that in more than half of the samples the layer of ash and sand is extremely thin, and that at times the ash is close to being completely absent. Furthermore, out of the 236 samples, 99 are irrelevant, and among the 137 relevant ones more than half show only a very thin layer of sand and ash, whereas among the remainder the percentage of sand is not less than 50%, and the thickness of the sand/ash layer varies greatly. Finally - and Kola does not state this explicitly - besides the sand, the human remains are intermingled also with animal remains:
> > "These diggings produced also a large amount of human bones, which were partly intermingled with remains of animal origin."
> From all this it becomes obvious that the amount of ash actually located in the graves is absolutely incompatible with the cremation of 600,000 corpses.

So I wonder if they found 17 tons of ash at Białuty, did it only have minimal traces of wood ash? Did the Nazis have some way to separate the wood ash when they burned the corpses? Or was the ash that was found at Białuty mixed with wood ash but they only reported the weight of the human ash?