Poland has held a state burial of the remains of more than 700 victims of Nazi Germany’s Second World War executions that were recently uncovered in the so-called Valley of Death in the country’s north.
The observances in the town of Chojnice included a funeral Mass at the basilica and interment with military honours at the local cemetery.
The remains of Polish civilians, including patients of an asylum, were exhumed from 2021 to 2024 from two separate sites near Chojnice.
Historians have established that the Nazis executed some of the civilians shortly after invading Poland on September 1 1939.
Other remains are from an execution that took place in January 1945, when the Germans were fleeing the area.
Poland lost six million citizens, or a sixth of its population, of which three million were Jewish, during the war. The country also suffered huge losses to its infrastructure, industry and agriculture.
