At least two mass graves have been discovered in Austria containing the bodies of dozens of victims killed by the Nazis, government officials said yesterday.
The graves are underneath an army sports field in the southern city of Graz. Government officials said they contain about 70 bodies of concentration camp inmates and others, all killed by the SS to eliminate witnesses to Nazi atrocities shortly before Soviet troops arrived.
The graves were identified from wartime photos, taken by US bombers, showing open graves and bodies.
Interior ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia says talks will be sought with the owners of the site to discuss possible exhumation.
A statement from the Austrian army suggested some of the remains may be those of US pilots shot down and imprisoned during World War II.
US authorities made the images available after a request from Austrian historians tasked two years ago by defence minister Norbert Darabos with researching documented war crimes at the site, used by the SS during the war.
A statement on the Austrian army website said up to 219 people were massacred at the location during the dying days of the war in an attempt to hush up atrocities committed there.
Among other things the probe was meant to "find out more over the identity and the whereabouts of the victims killed in the last days of World War II. The systematic violence of the Gestapo... focused mostly on resistance fighters, prisoners of war, concentration camp in-mates and forced labourers but also shot-down US pilots".
The site originally contained hundreds of victims but many were moved by the officer in charge of the wartime facility out of fears that he would be found responsible for the killing. The exhumation and reburials were stopped because of the approach of the Soviet Army.
While the relocated bodies were subsequently found and given a proper burial, about 70 of the dead remained unaccounted for until they were located by the probe.
The army statement said that the investigation had also established the identities of two suspected perpetrators who subsequently fled to Germany and could still be alive, although it gave no details.