A mass grave containing the remains of 11 people believed to be tortured and executed by the Nazis during World War 2 has been found in Poland.
Researchers were hunting for the remains of a father and son who were shot and buried in the woodland in 1943 but accidentally stumbled across multiple remains.
Near the town of Jedwabne in north-east Poland, the researchers found a grave containing the remains of 11 Poles with their hands tied behind their backs and signs of torture.
They also found a bullet casing from a German Mauser, which is the weapon widely used by all branches of Hitler's military.
Anthropologist Urszula Okularczyk said: "The arrangement of the hands indicates that the victims were bound before they died, the hands were tied behind their backs, the bodies were thrown without care, disrespectfully, and fell one on top of the other."
She said the skulls were noticeably destroyed by gunshots, as they could see "concentric lines and holes specific to the entry and exit openings".
June marked 81 years since 340 Jews were killed in the Jedwabne pogrom, in the same town where the remains were found.
Researchers believe more bodies are expected to be discovered in the woodland, which was nicknamed the ‘Forest of Death’ by locals due to the number of atrocities carried out there.
The area has been subject to contention as some have blamed Poles for killing Jews.
In July 1941, a group of Polish men from in and around Jedwabne began rounding up Jewish male residents.
The Jews were forced to pull down a statue of Vladimir Lenin, the Former Premier of the Soviet Union, and then were taken to a barn and clubbed and stabbed to death.
A memorial stone placed the number killed at 1,600, but partial exhumations years later put the estimates at 300 to 400 victims.
An investigation by Poland's Institute of National Remembrance concluded that those involved had been forced into it by the local German police and Gestapo.
Archaeologist Ryszard Cędrowski said: "The Gestapo, which had its headquarters in the market square in Jedwabne, caught Poles who helped or were innocent, or there were denunciations against them. They shot them."
One researcher appealed to the inhabitants of Jedwabne and the surrounding area, to families who know that their relatives were murdered, to report and provide a sample for genetic testing.
