‘Giving victims back their dignity’: tiny remains of people executed by Nazis buried in Berlin seven decades after war
- Human tissue remains were found on glass plates once used by Third Reich anatomy professor Hermann Sieve, who dissected inmates’ bodies in part to examine the impact of fear on women
Seven decades after the second world war ended, more than 300 tiny pieces of human tissue from political prisoners executed by the Nazis will be buried Monday at a Berlin cemetery.
The samples – each a hundredth of a millimetre thin and about a square centimetre in size – were uncovered on microscopic glass plates by the descendants of the Third Reich anatomy professor Hermann Stieve.
Stieve dissected and researched the bodies of inmates killed at the Berlin Ploetzensee jail, including those of executed resistance fighters – in part to examine the physical impact of fear experienced by women.
A ceremony will be held, with descendants of the victims expected to attend, before the remains are finally laid to rest at the Dorotheenstadt cemetery in central Berlin with a Catholic and a Protestant priest and a rabbi present.
“With the burial of the microscopic specimens … we want to take a step toward giving the victims back their dignity,” said Karl Max Einhaeupl, the head of Berlin’s university hospital Charite.