By DPA,
Bucharest: Archeologists in Romania have discovered a mass grave containing the remains of over 100 Jews murdered during World War II, media reports said Saturday.
So far 16 skeletons had been excavated from the site, near the village of Popricani, in northeastern Romania, according to the state prosecutor’s office, Iasi.
Archeologists had started investigating the area guided by the testimonies of eyewitnesses.
The Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of Holocaust in Romania confirmed that over 100 Jews, mostly women, children and elderly men, had been shot by Romanian soldiers in a wooded area near the village.
The front line ran through Popricani in 1941. Romania was allied with Nazi Germany from 1940 until 1944.
Iasi also confirmed that bullet casings had been found at the site. Senior prosecutor Cornelia Prisacariu ruled out the theory that the mass grave could be from World War I.
Until 2004, Romanian authorities had disputed accusations that a Holocaust had taken place in the country.
It only accepted the claims after a report by an international commission chaired by Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.
Wiesel’s report stated that the country’s civilian and military authorities had been responsible for the deaths of between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews in Romania and Romanian-administered areas.
It also reported that around 25,000 Roma had been deported from the country, around half of whom were killed.
There are only around 9,000 Jews in Romania today, compared with a pre-war population of around 800,000.