Poland honors victims of Nazi executions with state funeral

Poland held a state funeral on Monday for the remains of more than 700 victims of Nazi Germany's World War II executions that were recently discovered in the so-called Valley of Death in the north of the country.

The celebrations in the town of Chojnice included a funeral mass in the basilica and a burial with military honors in the local cemetery.

The remains of Polish civilians, including patients from an asylum, were exhumed from two different locations near Chojnice between 2021 and 2024. Historians have confirmed that the Nazis executed some of the civilians shortly after the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. Other remains date from an execution in January 1945, as the Germans fled the area. Poland lost 6 million citizens during the war, including 3 million Jews, and there were significant losses in infrastructure, industry and agriculture.

(With contributions from agencies.)