File:Mass Graves (Suttrop) 1945.jpg

English: Amerian officers ordered German civilians of Suttrop, Germany, to exhume the bodies of 57 Russians killed by German SS troops and dumped into a mass grave before the arrival of troops of the Ninth U.S. Army. Soldiers of the 95th Infantry Division were led by informers to the huge common grave of the victims, including women and one baby, May 3, 1945. The Russians are said to have been forced to dig their own burial pit and then were shot so that their bodies would roll into it. The executions are said to have taken place six weeks before U.S. troops entered Suttrop. The German civilians who were forced to exhume the bodies also were forced to search them for identification papers and then rebury them in individual graves. A U.S. Army chaplain performed burial rites and wreaths were placed on the greaves by Russians remaining in the area. Before burial, all German civilians in the vicinity were ordered to view the atrocity victims. This Photo shows: In a crude litter, 4 German civilians ly.. one of the victims into an individual grave.