After several years of preparation, research excavations were conducted in one of the alleys of the Bialystok military cemetery. According to witnesses, victims of communist terror are buried there. The bodies of ten people were found in the pits. Further work is planned in the spring.
– In some rare but existing eyewitness reports, it was said that here, among the graves of people who presented themselves for the communist authorities (…), those who died in the prisons and jails of Białystok were buried here , as well as people who died. in an operation near Białystok, – said the deputy president of the Institute of National Remembrance Krzysztof Shwagrzyk.
He – among others, the director of the IPN branch in Bialystok, Marek Jedynak, and the deputy president of Bialystok, Rafal Rudnicki, at the Bialystok military cemetery, where research was conducted this week.
Deputy President of the Institute of National Remembrance Krzysztof Szwagrzyk said there were few eyewitness reports on the subject in Białystok.
A total of seven burial pits were examined
It all started in 2017, when the first information about the burial of victims of communist terrorism in the cemetery, which was hidden for the burial of Polish soldiers who died in the war against the Bolsheviks in 1920. IPN staff in Białystok managed to find the witness and then the remaining archival information. Burials should be located under the alleys of the cemetery.
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After several years of preparation, in the middle of October, the first research excavations began in one of the avenues. The work is done in such a way as not to disturb the existing burials. More than 20 tombs were discovered in the first part of the avenue, 5 of which were examined. The bodies of 9 people were found out of these three people.
The bodies of ten people were found in the Bialystok branch of the Institute of National Remembrance.
The archaeologists are back this week. Another skeleton was discovered during the four-day work, which ended on Friday. In total, seven cemeteries have been inspected so far.
They hope to identify the victims
The Bialystok authorities say that after the completion of this work, the Institute of National Memorial will help organize the burial of the discovered bodies. They are likely to be buried in Columbaria, where the bodies of UB victims have been buried for four years, discovered in the detention center in Bialystok and elsewhere in the region.
Work continues in the spring IPN, branch in Bialystok
The National Memorial Institute began investigating the discovered burials. The next step will be to identify the rest. The Institute of National Remembrance hopes that, thanks to the DNA database, the identity of some of the victims will be established. He also appeals to his relatives, who lost their family members in 1944-1956 and have not yet found their burial place, to inform the institute.
They were buried among the graves and along the wall
The military cemetery was used to bury victims who died in various circumstances between July and August 1944 and the 1950s, the institute reports. Some were victims of investigative methods used by regional Public Security Department officers, others were brought from detention centers (including after execution).
For anonymous, so-called official burials (that is, related to the activities of the Ministry of Security of the communist government), the empty spaces of the cemetery between the graves and along the walls were used, but also a method was used that was planned before the official burial ceremony in this cemetery. such victims were first buried in a grave and covered with soil.
Source of main image: Institute of National Memory, branch in Bialystok
