The ashes of 8,000 Holocaust victims have been found in two mass graves in Poland.

Warsaw, Poland (AP) — Private investigators in Poland say they have discovered two mass graves containing the ashes of at least 8,000 Poles killed in forest massacres by the Nazis during World War II, which the Nazis later tried to cover up by burning them. planting trees on corpses and graves.

This week, researchers from the National Institute of History marked the search through speeches and a wreath-laying ceremony somewhere in the Bielut Forest, 160 kilometers (100 miles) north of Warsaw.

From March 1944, the bodies secretly buried in the forests of the invading Nazis were “taken, burned and crushed so that this crime would never be known and no one would be held responsible for it,” said Karol Nawrocki, president of the Institute of National Remembrance Wednesday on About It Said.

“These efforts have not been successful,” Navrotsky said.

The Nazis used other prisoners, mostly Jews, as cover. These prisoners were also killed.

Institute experts said at least 17 tons of ash were found in two pits 3 meters (10 feet) deep, meaning the remains of at least 8,000 people were buried there.

According to experts, most of the victims were Nazi-German prisoners of war at the Soldau war camp in the Polish town of Dzialdowo, who were killed in the jungle between 1940 and 1944. About 30,000 fighters and Jews, mostly from the Polish elite, military, insurgents, were imprisoned in the camp, and many were killed or died according to the Nazi extermination plan.

The forest is known as the tomb of the murdered prisoners, but the exact location of the mass graves and the number of victims are still unknown. This month, Institute archaeologists and anthropologists discovered two mass graves.

The institute investigates Communist crimes against Poles as well as Nazi crimes and has the authority to press charges if suspects are still alive.