WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland held a state funeral Monday for the remains of more than 700 victims of the 1944 terrorist attacks. Executions by Nazi Germany during World War II which were recently discovered in the so-called Valley of Death in the north of the country.
The ceremonies in the town of Chojnice include a funeral mass in the basilica and burial with military honors at the local cemetery.
The remains of Polish citizens, including patients of an institution, were exhumed from two separate sites near Chojnice between 2021 and 2024.
Historians have determined that the Nazis executed a number of civilians shortly after invading Poland on September 1, 1939. Other remains come from an execution that took place in January 1945, when the Germans fled the area.
Poland lost 6 million citizens, or one-sixth of its population, of whom 3 million were Jewish, in the war. The country also suffered huge losses to its infrastructure, industry and agriculture.
