Rabbis at excavation site
Photo: AFP
Excavation begins on suspected mass grave in Germany
Authorities believe site south of Berlin contains remains of hundreds of Jews killed by Nazis
German authorities began excavation work on Wednesday at a site south of Berlin that they believe contains one of the last undiscovered mass graves of Jews killed by the Nazis.
The previous owners of the 5,000 square meter property, near the Brandenburg village of Jamlitz, 120 km southeast of Berlin, had prevented investigations from taking place during the past decade.
The site is believed to be the largest mass grave of Jewish World War Two victims in Germany outside concentration camps.
Holocaust Remembrance Day
Zvi Zinger
Yad Vashem urges public to help identify children that appear in the 25,000 photos gathered by the Holocaust museum
Investigators say they are nearly certain the grave exists and is located on the property in question, which served as an auxiliary to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin.
The excavation site marks the spot where, on Feb. 2, 1945, 753 sick men and women, originally from Poland and Hungary, are believed to have been killed by the SS after being transported from Auschwitz death camp.
Excavation proceeds south of Berlin (Photo: AFP)
Peter Fischer from Germany's Central Council of Jews welcomed the start of work, saying he was relieved that after decades of neglect, the crime scene could be investigated.
"There is no doubt that this is the historically authentic place of one of the worst massacres around Berlin," Fischer told Reuters Television.
Over the next three weeks, a team of archaeologists, forensic experts, and public prosecutors will examine the grave site.
During communist East German rule, a mass grave of Jewish victims was discovered in a gravel pit nearby. At the time, 577 skeletons were moved to another location, against Jewish custom, and a memorial erected.
But in Jamlitz an investigation was forbidden because a Soviet camp in which thousands lost their lives after World War Two had operated on the same site. Houses were later built there.
Fischer said a similar fate would not befall the victims in the mass grave now under investigation.
"The construction of a swimming pool or an underground parking garage won't happen here. No, there will be a memorial site, a modest one, maybe one that will be created by future generations," he said.
