The possibility of establishing causes of death on the basis of the exhumed remains of prisoners executed during the communist regime in Poland: the exhumations at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw

The exhumations of victims of the communist regime at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw represent the latest mass exhumations carried out in Poland in the years 2011–2013. In addition to identification studies, the cause of death and mechanism of injury were determined and the method of execution reconstructed [5, 6, 11]. In the course of the studies, in each case where the most probable cause of death was established, the wounds were classified as ‘lethal’; that is to say, it was assumed that had they been sustained during life and they would have led to death within a short period of time, due to damage to vital organs [12]. Contrastingly, there were no cases of the type defined by Baraybar and Gasior as ‘lethal if untreated’, e.g. isolated skeletal injuries suggestive of gunshot wounds to the abdomen or proximal limbs [12]. These results appear understandable in light of the fact that the victims were executed individually on the basis of a court sentence. The execution had to result in the death of the convict, confirmed by a doctor; hence, the method of execution (shot to the head) had to be effective and cause rapid death. Injuries of a lethal if untreated nature would appear to be more characteristic of the victims of mass executions, battles, skirmishes or accidental shootings. Cases of extensive head injuries found during the exhumations in Warsaw may also be the result of execution by firing squad. However, due to erosional changes, it is impossible to either confirm or rule out gunshots as the mechanism of injury, though they are very likely given the historical context of the study location. Archival data on prisoners buried there indicate that the majority (about 85 %) were executed by firing squad. The results of research conducted at Powązki Military Cemetery in Warsaw are consistent with the results of research conducted during the exhumations at Osobowicki Cemetery in Wroclaw in 2011–2012 [6, 11]. Shots to the back of the head also dominated, although there was a greater variety of gunshot wounds (e.g. to the postcranial skeleton). The gunshot wounds observed in the skulls are clearly analogous with the results of the work carried out by Polish forensic pathologists in the burial sites of Polish officers in Katyn, Kharkov and Mednoye. Near these locations, in 1940, more than 10,000 Polish officers, prisoners of war held in camps in Kozelsk, Starobilsk and Ostashkov, were murdered by NKVD officers [13]. In the case of exhumations in Katyn, gunshot wounds to the head were found in 77.8 % of the exhumed skeletons, of which approximately 97 % were shots to the occiput [14]. During exhumations in Kharkov, gunshot wounds were found in 39 % of the exhumed skeletons, of which 73 % were wounds of the occiput [15], whereas in Mednoye, gunshot wounds to the head were found in 74 % of the cases, with a clear predominance of shots to the occiput [16]. Irrespective of the relatively small differences in the location of the entrance and exit defects in the skulls, the authors of this publication use the term ‘Katyn method of execution’ for shots to the rear of the head, fired from small arms at close range. However, as is apparent from these studies of the exhumation of prisoners of the camps of the former USSR, in some cases (from 22–61 %), it was not possible to determine the cause of death, even though the archival data suggest a very high probability that all the officers were killed via a similar mechanism of injury, i.e. from a shot to the head [14‐16]. The authors of these studies explain this in terms of the condition of the skeletons (fragmentation, incompleteness, erosional processes, the possibility of gunshots to the nape of the neck), which is also consistent with the findings resulting from examination of the remains exhumed in Warsaw. Archival data indicate that about 15 % of inmates of the Warsaw prison who could have been there between 1948 and 1955 and who were buried in Powązki were executed by hanging. However, in no case was it possible to confirm the presence of cervical spine fractures which could be associated with execution by hanging [17]. In such executions, the presence of changes of this kind depends on, among other factors, methods of attaching the noose and of carrying out the execution (use of a trapdoor, length of the rope) [17]. Cervical spine fractures are extremely rare in typical hanging cases; fractures of the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone are likewise infrequent. Retrospective studies by Feigin give the incidence of all fractures of various parts of the neck (spine, hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage) as about 9.5 %, whereas fractures of the cervical spine in the studied remains accounted for less than 1 % [18]. In about half the cases, the action of the noose around the neck is unaccompanied by even soft tissue damage [17]. Research on the exhumed remains of prisoners sentenced to death by hanging using the trapdoor, with the knot of the noose located under the left ear, showed that fracture ‘was not usual’ [19]. Therefore, confirmation of hanging as the cause of death, based on the study of exhumed skeletal remains of individuals executed more than 60 years earlier, should be considered very unlikely to the point of being unique. Moreover, in the research conducted in Osobowicki Cemetery in Wroclaw in 2011–2012, the presence of such injuries was not revealed in any case. In analysing the cases in which forensic medical examination failed to determine the cause of death, several possible factors should be considered. Erosional changes could erase all traces of injuries, even as extensive as gunshot wounds to the head, from bones. Fatal wounds could affect the soft tissues (internal organs) while leaving no traces on the bones. Death could also be a consequence of changes due to disease, which would leave no traces on the skeleton. In the overall analysis of the data, one more very important factor should be taken into account, namely, the incompleteness of archival data and hence a certain degree of difficulty in foreseeing potential problem areas associated with the studied location (the place where prisoners were buried). From the archival data, it appears that prisoners who died from causes other than execution, for reasons such as illness, or even prisoners from other prisons, might happen to be buried in Powązki [20]. The incomplete state of archival data appears to be one of the main concerns, also emphasised by other authors [21], associated with the exhumation of victims from several decades past, a concern which should also be taken into account when considering the possible cause of death. Therefore, the authors advocate extreme caution in the interpretation of all data collected in the course of archival, archaeological and forensic studies of victims of the communist regime, both in Poland and in other countries of the former Eastern bloc.