A man looks for identification papers on one of the 57 corpses of Russians, including women and one baby, exhumed from a mass grave near Suttrop.

A man looks for identification papers on one of the 57 corpses of Russians, including women and one baby, exhumed from a mass grave near Suttrop.

The victims were forced to dig their own grave and then were shot by SS troops six weeks before the arrival of American troops. On May 3, 1945, the 95th Infantry Division of the U.S. Ninth Army arrived in Suttrop and were informed by locals of the mass grave. American troops forced the townspeople to exhume the grave after which Russian displaced persons in the area identified the bodies. The victims were reburied in individual graves, and a U.S. Army chaplain conducted burial services. Russians remaining in the area placed wreaths on the graves.