Excavations? I guess they forgot.
In The Tragedy in Lithuania: 1941-1944 New Documents on Lithuanian Collaborators During the Second World War 2008) we can find the following reports:
doc 13. REPORT OF THE MEDICO-LEGAL EXAMINATION
OF THE MASS GRAVE IN THE VICINITY OF THE TOWN OF ŽAGARE September 24, 1944 submitted by Assistant chief medico-legal expert of the 1st Baltic front, captain of medical service I PRIKHODKO; Medico-legal expert of the 51st army, captain of medical service FILYAKOV
doc 14. REPORT OF MEDICO-LEGAL VISUAL EXAMINATION OF THE SITE OF THE MASS GRAVE IN THE VICINITY OF ŽAGARE September 24, 1944 submitted by Assistant chief medico-legal expert of the 1st Baltic front, captain of medical service I PRIKHODKO; Medico-legal expert of the 51st army, captain of medical service FILYAKOV
doc 16. ACT ON CRIMES OF FASCIST AGGRESSORS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES IN THE VICINITY OF THE CITY OF ŽAGARE October 5, 1944 submitted by Chairman of the Commission I Military Public Prosecutor 8 PAVKD
doc 17. SPECIAL REPORT ON MASS EXECUTIONS IN THE CITY OF ŽAGARE Top secret October 6, 1944; in addition to ours 20175/2
These 4 documents provide description of what investigators found following excavation of three mass graves (and examination of the remains discovered in these graves) at Žagare in Lithuania.
The following should be noted, of the three mass graves (one large, two small) studied:
- “The examination of corpses established that the destruction of Soviet civilians was carried out by execution from firearms, rifles, pistols, and submachine guns”
- from the large grave, a total of 2,402 corpses . . . exhumed, among them: 20 . . . corpses were subjected to full medico-legal examination, 2,382 corpses . . . were subjected to medical-legal visual examination”; corpses were also extracted and examined from the smaller graves
- “All the corpses, except for five Lithuanians, are Jewish”.
The final report (doc 17) notes the exhumation of 2,448 corpses. The corpses examined were reported to be
Corpses of men - 574
Corpses of women - 1,225
Corpses of children under 15 - 675
Corpses of babies - 24
Arithmetic was not the strong suit of those compiling doc 17 as their tally adds to 2,498, not 2,448, which means that they summed to less than the total - or made errors in the breakdown of corpses by sex and age. Earlier reports gave slightly varying totals (e.g., doc 16 has from grave 1 - 530 men, 1,223 women, and 625 children, thus "2,403 corpses were extracted" the total being off by 1, not 50 in this case; from grave 2 - "38 male corpses"; and from grave 3 - 8 corpses for a total of 2,424. And so on.)
Further, also from The Tragedy in Lithuania: 1941-1944 New Documents on Lithuanian Collaborators During the Second World War 2008 we can read docs 46 & 52 on the inspection of mass graves at "Ilokiai."
In doc 52 (doc 52 ACT ON CRIMES AND ATROCITIES OF FASCIST AGGRESSORS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES IN THE ILOKIAI BOROUGH, THE MEŽEIKIAI UYEZD, THE LITHUANIAN SSR October 18-19 1944) in particular we are told that, following interrogations, the investigative commission examined three mass graves where witnesses had told that the town of Ilokiai’s Jews had been buried after being shot. In the three graves were reported to be*
- grave 1: “300 disorderly dumped corpses of men, women, and children in 4 layers” and without shoes and mostly undressed
- grave 2: “about 100 corpses”; “disorderly dumped corpses of men, women and children”
- grave 3: “3 corpses of men”
Again we confront a maths problem as the report says “So, in total, up to 475 corpses were revealed in the graves.” 47 of the corpses were examined; “all of the corpses have gunshot wounds in the top areas of the body, many corpses have several wounds, that evidences that the execution was carried out from small and automatic weapon.”