Weimar / Germany (RNC Agency) 24.08.1997

Hundreds of urns filled with human ashes that were discovered at the former Buchenwald concentration camp were buried Sunday at a mountain cemetery.

The 701 metal urns were found May 7 by carpenters working on the roof of the crematorium. They had no markings to identify the dead, in accordance with the Nazi policy of keeping their victims nameless, officials of the Buchenwald Foundation said.

The Nazis interned about 263,000 people from more than 30 countries at the camp in the woods of the Ettersberg, a mountain outside Weimer, 125 miles southwest of Berlin.

More than 56,000 people died there, including at least 11,000 Jews.

After 1943, the Nazis stopped using urns to store ashes, tossing them instead in nearby rivers or a giant pit. Officials said the newly discovered urns were likely stored above the crematorium and then forgotten as the Allies advanced and Nazi guards aband oned the camp in April 1945. They were buried in a cemetery on the Ettersbrg during a ceremony attended by former camp inmates; Ignatz Bubis, chairman of Central Council of Jews in Germany; Romani Rose chairman of Central Council of German Roma and Sinti.