Holocaust mass grave at Stuttgart airport
During the years I lived in Stuttgart, I remember several occasions when construction workers found unexploded bombs from WWII. But this recent discovery of a piece of Nazi-era legacy is uniquely horrifying, and within an easy bike-ride from where I lived:
Remains believed to be from some 30 Jews forced into labour by the Nazis during World War Two have been found by construction workers at Stuttgart airport.
The skeletons were found on Monday near the entrance of a U.S. military airbase which borders the airport, the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office and the Baden-Württemberg bureau of investigation said in a joint statement.
Medical checks suggested the bodies were buried around 60 years ago and were possibly the remains of Jewish prisoners from the nearby Echterdingen labour camp who had starved to death in late 1944 and early 1945, the statement said
Reuters AlertNet – Mass WWII grave discovered at Stuttgart airport, Sept 21, 2005
I know the airport quite well, and I was vaguely aware that there had been a labor camp. To hear about this mass grave, though, is chilling. To my generation, the Holocaust is history. Important history, but history that belongs into books and museums. Human remains covered in dirt resurrects this history from its dusty pages and make it stare at you with hollow eyes and a tired, tortured grimace. No, we’ll never forget.