Poland finds thousands of remains while improving city park

WARSAW, Poland – Officials in central Poland have halted improvements at a city park after archeologists found human remains at the site, a former Evangelical cemetery which held tens of thousands of bodies that were supposed to have been exhumed and moved in the 1950s.

Post-World War II documents say the graves at the cemetery in Bydgoszcz, which chiefly belonged to German residents who lived and died in the city when it was part of Prussia, were moved to make room for the park, according to city officials.

But archaeologist Robert Grochowski told Polish broadcaster TVN24 on Tuesday that his team came across so many graves still bearing remains that it suggested the exhumations planned in the 1950s never happened.

“We have found an untouched grave level, or rather levels,” Grochowski said. “I can cautiously assume that there are some 80,000 remains in the whole cemetery, according to scientific examination. We have a very big problem.”

The halted project involved adding a playground, an open-air gym and a winter sports hill to the park at a cost of some 8 million zlotys ($ 2 million; euros 1.8 million) and with the aid of European Union funds.

The archeologists were called in by water authorities, who wanted to install underground water reservoirs while the project was underway.

Officials are still deciding what to do now with the remains and the park.