Mass Graves Research Articles

Forensic Applications of Geophysical and Geochemical Methods

Classic forensic investigations are sometimes insufficient to collect all of the potential evidence from a crime-scene, especially if conducted a long-time after, particularly when there are limitations in accessing the site and performing the fieldwork. The described limitations are particularly pronounced in the investigation of war crimes or location of war legacy (unexploded ordnance, buried weapons, mass graves and other potential war-crimes). This paper presents some of the geophysical and geochemical methods and techniques that have been used around the world - the Balkans, the Middle East and the Ukraine, especially in locating secondary and tertiary mass graves and residual military materiel. The described methods include the use of remote sensing methods via airborne or satellite sensors that indicate certain changes on the ground, the use of ground penetrating radar systems, electromagnetic methods, sensors for detecting residual radiation, and geochemical methods of water and soil sampling to collect evidence or locate zones of potential interest. The presented methods outline descriptive alterations in the soil mineralogy, electrical conductivity, occurrences of voids or discontinuities in the ground-penetrating radar data and unusual concentrations of metals or organic substances in water or soil as potential indicators of mass war-crimes or other war legacy.

Using cementochronology to assess the seasonality of catastrophic events in medieval mass graves (Kutná Hora-Sedlec, Czechia, 14th century): Preliminary results

While season-of-death estimation using cementochronology is routine in archaeozoology, its use is much less frequent in bioarchaeology. Based on the character of the outermost increment (bright or dark), two seasons (spring/summer, autumn/winter) can be distinguished. Although many studies mention its potential and possible use in forensic anthropology or bioarchaeology, few exist with estimation results. This study aimed to apply cementochronology–a histological method based on counting and assessing regular circa-annual acellular cementum increments–to 42 individuals from medieval mass graves from Kutná Hora-Sedlec (Czechia, 14th century) to estimate the season-of-death. The mass graves belong to two stratigraphically distinct groups; written and archaeological sources relate them to two catastrophic events (the famine of 1318 and the plague epidemic of 1348–1350). Using cementochronology, we distinguished two distinct seasons corresponding to the two groups of graves, with individuals from the first group dying predominantly in spring/summer, while those from the second group died in autumn/winter. Taking into account the typical seasonal dynamics of epidemics, the results would be more in line with written sources. However, during the evaluation, we faced difficulties identifying the outermost increment and detecting the dark (thinner) increment; we recommend including only young and middle-aged adults in future studies, due to the difficulty of evaluation, and to consider the readability of the tissue (often affected by diagenesis). In conclusion, cementochronology has potential in the context of estimating the season-of-death, but the technical possibilities for enhancing the outermost increment need to be addressed, and the amount of data analysed expanded.

The misidentification of the deceased person beyond visual recognition within the pre-trial investigation: problematic issues and legal consequences

Objective. The purpose of the article is to highlight the issues of misidentification of a person within the framework of pre-trial investigation of criminal proceedings on the facts of discovery of corpses of unidentified persons which are not subject to visual identification. The author focuses on the stages and procedure for identification of a deceased person, as well as on some legal consequences of misidentification and ways to eliminate them. Methodology. The methodological basis of the study is the results of the practical experience of one of the authors of the article during his practical work in the pre-trial investigation unit of the National Police of Ukraine during 2015-2021. Results. The author concludes that it is inadmissible for investigators and experts to make mistakes in the identification of the dead in situations where identification of the body is impossible due to various factors, including force majeure, because incorrect identification of a person within the pre-trial investigation may lead to confusion in the transfer of the deceased's body to the family, incorrect execution of title documents, and other consequences that will seriously affect the fate of the deceased's family in terms of moral and material (social) security. This situation is typical for the discovery of bodies of deceased persons (military and civilian) in places of spontaneous burials, including mass graves, as a result of hostilities, temporary occupation of certain regions, which were recorded after de-occupation and stabilization measures in certain regions of Ukraine. Scientific novelty. The work of legal experts has hardly been devoted to the study of the identification of the bodies of the dead during the pre-trial investigation, partly limited to the analysis of certain rules on the legal grounds and tactics of conducting a crime scene inspection or exhumation, while forensic scientists have been more concerned with this issue. Therefore, the scientific novelty of the authors' work is based on practical developments and supported by knowledge in the field of criminal procedure and forensics, which is timely and extraordinary. Practical significance. The conducted research and analysis of the problem, supported by practical experience, will contribute to a deeper understanding of the problem of misidentification of the deceased person beyond visual recognition and acquires a recommendation content for synergy in the work of pre-trial investigation and forensic medicine specialists.

“The Radio Said They Were Just Deportees”: From Border Necropolitics to Transformative Grief in Tim Z. Hernandez’s All They Will Call You (2017)

Just as necropower discriminates between those who can and those who cannot live, post-mortem circumstances are explicitly affected by an irrefutable gentrification of memory and grievability. Drawing on the political dimension of mourning and on the concept of slow death, this paper proposes a necropolitical reading of All They Will Call You (2017), where Tim Z. Hernandez revisits the 1948 plane crash that killed 28 Mexican deportees at Los Gatos (California) and the subsequent oblivion that prevented their memorialisation except for a mass grave containing their remains and a protest song (“Deportees”) composed by Woody Guthrie. My analysis focuses on Hernandez’s attempts at dismantling the tropes of criminality and expendability that Latino immigrants are associated with as a result of their racialised vulnerability, which are distinctively aggravated in border contexts. Excavating in the background stories of these deportees seems to me an ironic contestation to the failed forensic work that left them unnamed and unritualised for seven decades. And, at the same time, I contend that, in line with the work of many activists and artists in the US–Mexico border, Hernandez mobilises solidarity while transforming our perception of migrant bare lives into one of migrant agency.

Jewish Cemetery at Gwarna Street (former Claassenstrasse) in Wrocław: Excavation Report from 2017 and Opportunities for Rescue and Commemoration

Excavations in the area of the former Jewish cemetery in Wrocław at Gwarna Street (formerly Claassenstrasse) have been undertaken many times, most recently in 2017. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the cemetery has been subject to urban encroachment which gradually reduced its historic area, forcing two exhumations, followed by devastation in the 1940s under the Nazi regime. The cemetery was formally liquidated in post-war Poland, in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time, the remaining tombstones were removed and part of the area was built over. In order to develop the areas covered by the earlier exhumations, exploration works were carried out to identify the exact area. In 2017, burials from the cemetery were discovered during construction works. Excavations carried out in 2017 revealed seven individual burials, a mass grave with 115 burials in wooden cases, and 5 mass graves from WWII. Within the cases, fragments of pottery from the 18th and 19th centuries were found. The authors discuss the history of the cemetery, details of the 2017 excavation report with analysis, and current efforts to protect and commemorate the area.

Invisibility, Grief, and Death: A New Burial in Mexican Contemporary Art

With the perpetuation of violence in Mexico, traditional forms of mourning and burial have become increasingly inaccessible to victims and their families. Widespread bloodshed has not only resulted in mass burials of unnamed victims, but the Mexican government furthers the trauma by discouraging institutional processes that would otherwise bring closure and recognition to affected families. In response to the institutions that have rendered victims invisible, this article argues that Mexican contemporary artists have created their own spaces of mourning, referred to as a ‘new burial,’ to repair traditions of death that have otherwise been compromised or denied entirely.

The humans of ancient Hermione. The necropolis in the light of bioarchaeology

Bioarchaeology has the potential to substantially inform about ancient lifeways through osteological analyses of the remains of the once-living individuals. This article provides insights of the demography and health of the people of ancient Hermione (Geometric–Roman period). A minimum number of 85 individuals from the Hermione necropolis was osteologically analysed. Although the analysis was limited by taphonomic processes and the long period of use of the necropolis, the results point towards a population affected by urban hazards, such as infections, high child mortality, and, possibly, decreased opportunity to survive into senescence. Further, stunted growth, evidence of general stress primarily in the juvenile skeletal assemblage, and a possible case of child abuse informs of the hardships experienced by children in ancient Hermione. The osteological analysis also confirms that the two individuals buried in the “Warrior Tomb” were of both sexes. The skeletal remains were unfortunately too poorly preserved for detailed analyses of trauma or other health-related patterns. The practice of burying all age groups and both sexes in collective graves between the 6th–5th and 2nd centuries BC might correspond to the necropolis as a communal burial ground, while older and younger graves were assigned for single individuals only.

Battlefield, Barracks, or Hospital? A Bioarchaeological Investigation of a Mass Grave at the Jičín Observatory, Czech Republic

In 2016, a rescue excavation at the Jičín Natural Sciences Centre and Observatory uncovered a mass grave containing multiple commingled individuals buried in several layers. Zinc buttons and clothing remnants possibly related to eighteenth–nineteenth-century military uniforms found in the grave suggest that these individuals were soldiers. During this period, the Jičín region experienced numerous battles and was the location of several military barracks, hospitals, and transport routes, in addition to supporting civilian populations. To contextualize this burial site, bioarchaeological analyses including assessments of age-at-death, sex, and stature, and recording the presence of injury or medical intervention were conducted. A high frequency of young adult males suggests that the grave was related to military activity. The presence of infants, limited evidence of perimortem trauma, and absence of signs of medical treatment could indicate that this mass grave was related to military encampments rather than battlefield contexts.

Mass Graves, Truth and Justice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Investigation of Mass Graves eds. by Ellie Smith & Melanie Klinker (review)

Mass Graves, Truth and Justice: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Investigation of Mass Graves eds. by Ellie Smith & Melanie Klinker (review)

Introducing Research Through Oral Surveys: French Students Meet Witnesses of the Holocaust by Bullets

Abstract French students in the third and final year from the Humanities and Social Sciences license A license is the first national university degree and it is completed in six terms. degree course traveled to Ukraine and Belorussia between 2017 and 2020, in order to carry out surveys of eyewitnesses to the so-called “Holocaust by Bullets.” The subject-matter stands out in the French scholarly scene, as the Holocaust usually attracts little attention at this level of studies. Students registered in the course hail from license degrees in History, Social Sciences or Geography, and have chosen to attend the course labeled “European Historical Heritage and Citizens’ Thoughts” as a complement to a more classical curriculum, and as a way of enhancing their own university curriculum. The research professors involved have also volunteered to participate as authors of the aforementioned multidisciplinary program, with the aim to raise awareness to research practices on the Holocaust. University professors and teams from the Yahad-in-Unum Since its foundation in 2004 by Father Patrick Desbois (2007), having researched Soviet and Nazi Second World War records, the organization has been tirelessly surveying all Eastern European locations associated with the Holocaust by Bullets. It has been collecting villagers’ testimonies supporting the evidence of a genocide, documenting the locations of mass graves, and at times identifying victims. The results of such meticulous research have been made public on an interactive online map displaying the locations of all the mass graves recorded – over 2000 to date – and making the information and testimony relevant to each of the sites available to web users. See [online] https://www.yahadmap.org/%20-%20map/#map/ NGO take turns leading the two-hour weekly sessions. The professors help establish theoretical focus and provide methodological tools, develop lines of investigation on various areas of interest (e.g., mode of operation used in the shootings, collaboration and rescue operations, and neighbors of the crime scene), as well as the context (anti-Semitism, racism, local geopolitics, regional history, culture and society, etc.), while Yahad-in-Unum participants describe actual cases based on records, maps and filmed testimonies. They had the task to provide documents from Soviet and Nazi archives translated from Russian, or from German, and act as translators during fieldwork. Students are encouraged to participate as often as possible and have to prepare analytical reports and presentations following each session, while adopting the position of a researcher.

“Saved from Oblivion”? The Uncertain Futures of Holocaust Heritage

The twenty-first century is a time of increased uncertainty over the future of sites associated with the Holocaust. As “sites of memory” and “sites of conscience,” they are part of an ongoing debate as to their contentious place within international heritage conventions (UNESCO 2023). Further, while much attention has been paid to the specific challenges of managing Holocaust heritage in the context of the imminent passing of the last of the Holocaust survivors (Pearce 2020; Gilmore and Magee 2018), and the rise in Holocaust denial and distortion (Bauer 2020), the challenges posed by anthropogenic climate change raise yet more uncertainties. Holocaust heritage—along with other heritage places—faces accelerated decay and destruction brought on by the climate emergency, including extreme weather events. Across Europe, examples include the former camp of Fossoli (Italy), already fragile following an earthquake; the collapse of a wall at the former camp of Sachsenhausen (Germany); and the ongoing ruin of the Dresden Barracks in the former ghetto of Terezin (Czech Republic), after a series of storms. Other sites are threatened by rising sea levels—for example, the mass graves and former cemetery in Alderney in the Channel Islands. However, the usual options in the face of destruction of the historical record, which include either expensive preservation and restoration programs or a form of “curated decay” (DeSilvey 2017), are particularly problematic given the complexities of Holocaust sites because of the specific histories and stakeholders. While preservation and restoration are often beyond the financial reach of most Holocaust sites, “curated decay” raises questions about the retention of historic fabric which, as well as being protected under various forms of heritage legislation, is understood as part of the evidence of genocide. Therefore, the concurrent anxieties over the passing of the survivor generation, the rise of Holocaust denial and distortion, and the challenges of climate change create uncertainties for heritage professionals and site managers as to how to best manage the safeguarding of these unique sites. Using the former camp at Fossoli in Italy and the former ghetto of Terezin as case studies, this paper critically examines ideas of loss and uncertainty within heritage practice to explore the lessons for safeguarding Holocaust heritage in the Anthropocene.

Enduring violence and commemoration: Korea’s Cheju April 3 Incident

Post-atrocity survivors construct spaces of being through various levels of visibility and stages of construction. Those with inherited memories of their ancestors from mass atrocities share the ability to exert their postmemories that mediates the past memory in its affective force to restore their sociability with their relatives, neighbors, community, and nation. A central medium of postmemory typically comes in the form of commemorative ritual practices that contain a mixture of mourning and re-creation of family and community. Ritual engages informal sociocultural processes outside the purview of the state. Commemoration rituals reflect ordinary people’s attempts to seek moral renewal and social repair to promote social reconstruction and recovery of humanity. This essay considers feminist interventions of intimate memorial scales, enabling us to envision potential alternative historical trajectories in post-massacre commemorations, memorials, reburials, and as mnemonic locations for agonistic testimonies to emerge around a mid-century massacre in South Korea called the “Cheju April 3 Incident.” We take into consideration how the postmemory of the Cheju April 3 Incident is intergenerationally transmitted and ritually re-enacted through family ancestor worship, and the reburial of remains after the exhumation of mass graves. The lessons of postmemory practices are crucial to the foundation of humanity after atrocity.

The Time Hides It Deceptively

At the same time, the Pázmány Péter University stated as the reasons for the loss of employment that Dr. Orsós: “gave a series of false forensic opinions”, “gave a false expert opinion in the excavation of the Katyn mass graves”, “himself became a member of the SS”. The Verification Committee of the Hungarian Pázmány Péter University filed a denunciation on 13 July 1945 against “the war criminal university professors Dr. Ferenc Orsós, Dr. Károly Burger, Dr. József Boros, Dr. Gyula Darányi, who had escaped to Germany. On 28 May 1946, the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Budapest issued a letter of inquiry against Dr. Ferenc Orsós. In my opinion, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences should set an example to the current generations in respecting the high standards, in objectively appreciating the past generation of scientists and in having the moral fibre to be able to expose the mistakes of the past not only in form but also in substance. Cynical cowards, the great powers (the Soviet Union, the United States of America, England, France) have a huge responsibility in the Orsós affair. As can be seen from the above list, no academics from the Department of Medical Sciences have been rehabilitated. In my opinion, it must be clearly stated that this must never happen again, that the recognition of scientific and professional achievements is subordinated to the winds of politics.In my opinion, financial support should be sought from them to give Orsós the recognition he deserves in Hungarian and international public opinion. We propose that his ashes be brought home and reburied with military honours as an outstanding Hungarian personality of World War II.

PARAMILITARY AND WAR CRIMES COMMITTED IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA / PARAVOJNE JEDINICE I RATNI ZLOČINI POČINJENI U BOSNI I HERCEGOVINI

The last armed conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which took place between 1992 and 1995, was a bloody one. Not only was lots of real blood were spilled, but metaphorically speaking, it resulted in millions of displaced persons, hundreds of mass graves, hundreds of places of detention, hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war, hundreds of thousands of tortured and destroyed lives. During the aftermath of the war, around 700 war crime cases were prosecuted, spanning one thousand defendants, and including all possible war crimes, including genocide. These war crime trials could be observed from different perspectives. While most of these crimes were committed by soldiers and police officers, among those who were not soldiers or police officers, one category is to be particularly observed, the paramilitary. Members of the paramilitary, not soldiers or civilians, according to the database of war crimes, were charged in some 5% of all war crimes cases. But then, if these persons are not soldiers or civilians, the question is who were they, and why they do what they did? Furthermore, what interest did they have in behaving in a way that is characterized as criminal, more precisely, a war crime. Among number of the war crimes committed by the paramilitary groups in Bosnia and Herzegovina, this paper will analyze ones including most serious crimes and those of most significance. By doing that, this paper will contribute to the better understanding of the position and behavior of the paramilitary groups involved in committing war crimes, further legal regulation of their position, and social understanding of the nature of paramilitary forces in and after the armed conflict.

From nonhuman to postsecular: transformation of the difficult heritage of Soviet repressions in post-Soviet Russia

ABSTRACT Transforming social perceptions of those repressed by the Soviet regime in the late eighties, prompted urgent action to deal with difficult Soviet heritage, especially with landscapes of the dead buried in mass graves. However, human engagement in transforming these traumaspaces revealed that these landscapes had already been transformed by non-human actants - plants and trees – often as witnesses to the crimes themselves. Therefore, in planning their commemorations, human memory activists had to negotiate the landscape with non-human actants and often attribute some human significance to the memory work they performed. This article discusses how Soviet traumaspaces were slowly transformed from non-human commemorations to commemorations meticulously planned by humans. From the very beginning, these human commemorations used both religious and secular languages. However, when the state actively engaged in the commemoration of the victims of Soviet repressions after 2015, a new constellation of power relations between civil society, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the state emerged, which, over time, led to the appearance of post-secular commemorations.

From slavery to prison: necropolitics and the (neo)slave narrative in Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys

In his seventh novel Colson Whitehead focuses on the recent scandalous discovery of clandestine mass graves found at Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, a reform school in Florida. During its 111 years of existence the school became the target of various investigations as rumors about maltreatment of its juvenile detainees were sporadically spread. Whitehead focuses on the mass graves and specifically on the black corpses and produces a fictional narrative out of these corpses as a form to reject forgetting and unbury a scandalous event that most Americans would prefer not to be informed. Through Mbembe’s concept of necropolitics I claim that The Nickel Boys reveals another scandal: the persistent necropolitical nature of US incarceration system. My argument is that the palimpsest structure of the novel as it juxtaposes the prison novel with the (neo)slave narrative eventually creates a precise illustration of Mbembe’s critique on modern democracies as postulated in his concept of necropolitics.

The divine in mass graves: Transient Lithospheres above Mexican femicide

The divine in mass graves: Transient Lithospheres above Mexican femicide

African Spirituality and the Gukurahundi Mass Grave Exhumations in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT: The mass killings in the southern part of Zimbabwe from 1983 to 1987, which are commonly known as the Gukurahundi massacres, raise a number of issues, including the need to exhume bodies of those killed in order to bury them in a proper way. This article contributes to the debates on exhumations of mass graves in an African context by examining the connection between avenging spirits and transitional justice through a detailed discussion of Bantu cosmology. The article argues that though the exhumation of the graves of those killed during the Gukurahundi massacres is resisted by those in power, exhumations are pertinent and in line with the Bantu traditions of properly re-burying the dead. Doing so fills a need to appease avenging spirits in order to achieve proper transitional justice and closure .

The Black Death in Hereford, England: A demographic analysis of the Cathedral 14th-century plague mass graves and associated parish cemetery.

This study explores the paleoepidemiology of the Black Death (1348-52 AD) mass graves from Hereford, England, via osteological analysis. Hereford plague mortality is evaluated in the local context of the medieval city and examined alongside other Black Death burials. The Hereford Cathedral site includes mass graves relating to the Black Death and a 12th-16th century parish cemetery. In total, 177 adult skeletons were analyzed macroscopically: 73 from the mass graves and 104 from the parish cemetery. Skeletal age-at-death was assessed using transition analysis, and sex and stress markers were analyzed. The age-at-death distributions for the mass graves and parish cemetery were significantly different (p = 0.0496). Within the mass graves, young adults (15-24 years) were substantially over-represented, and mortality peaked at 25-34 years. From 35 years of age onwards, there was little variation in the mortality profiles for the mass graves and parish cemetery. Males and females had similar representation across burial types. Linear enamel hypoplasia was more prevalent within the mass graves (p = 0.0340) whereas cribra orbitalia and tibial periostitis were underrepresented. Mortality within the Hereford mass graves peaked at a slightly older age than is seen within plague burials from London, but the overall profiles are similar. This demonstrates that young adults were disproportionately at risk of dying from plague compared with other age groups. Our findings regarding stress markers may indicate that enamel hypoplasia is more strongly associated with vulnerability to plague than cribra orbitalia or tibial periostitis.

Indigenous Burial Spaces in Media: Views of Mi'gmaq Cemeteries as Sites of Horror and the Sacred

The term “ancient Indian burial ground” holds bifurcated meaning for Indigenous and mainstream populations. What one group may respect as sacred ground where their ancestors rest, another sees the mystical –and frequently evil– site of forces beyond their knowledge influenced by an ethnic Other. This paper explores this dual labeling of North American Indigenous burial sites through media by looking at representations of Mi’gmaq burial gravesites. In director Jeff Barnaby’s 2013 Rhymes for Young Ghouls, main character Aila (Devery Jacobs) confronts two burial sites that turn the mainstream stereotype on its head: that of her mother which situates Indigenous burials in a contemporary context and that of a mass grave of children at her residential school which places malintent on settler colonial practices. The film highlights Indigenous ways of coping with these practices including violence, substance abuse, and art. Dissimilarly, Pet Sematary’s (1989) plot involves no Mi’gmaq representation but follows non-Indigenous Louis (Dale Midkiff) as he interacts with a stereotypical Indian burial ground imbued with evil, unknown magic that leads to the inevitable downfall of his entire family. Both films interestingly include zombies, and they portray Indigenous burial spaces similarly as shot from above and filled with fog. However, their conclusive statements placing the blame behind the horror are vastly different.