More victims of Stalinist terror confirmed in Warsaw dig

Prelimary radar work at Powazki Military Cemetery: photo - IPN

The names of the victims will be revealed on Friday, the day of the so-called 'Cursed Soldiers' who refused to lay down their arms when a communist regime was installed in Poland after World War II.

Since 2012, some 200 skeletons have been exhumed from mass graves in the military section of Warsaw's Powazki Cemetery.

From 1948 to 1956, over 300 death sentences were carried out in Warsaw's Mokotow prison on those deemed as traitors to the new regime.

Many were leaders of resistance groups such as Freedom and Independence (WiN), and the anti-communist formations were vilified throughout the Cold War era. A day of remembrance for the 'Cursed Soldiers' was finally established in 2011.

President Bronislaw Komorowski will be decorating a number of surviving veterans in the Belvedere Palace on Friday.

Presidential advisor Professor Tomasz Nalecz told the Rzeczpospolita daily that Komorowski “has always believed that as a representative of the Solidarity generation that managed to win Poland's independence, gratitude should be shown to those who fought for it, but could not taste victory.

“Instead, they were killed and buried anonymously in death pits,” he said.

During the first wave of exhumations, Komorowski declared that a museum should be created in Warsaw in memory of victims of communist oppression.

Plans are now afoot to build a pantheon to the soldiers at the Powazki Military Cemetery.

Meanwhile, the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), which co-directed the exhumations, has made a further appeal to relatives of victims who have not already done so to provide DNA samples, in the hope that more remains can be identified.

It is expected that further exhumations will be carried out this year. (nh)