Human remains found at Westerplatte. Polish bayonet and buttons point to a missing 1939 defender

Found beside a 1911 concrete shelter

The discovery was made on the construction site of the Westerplatte Museum, during archaeological supervision of earthworks for the first stage of the project. The bones lay near the outpost known as Fort, about 2.5 metres below present-day ground level and around half a metre from the northern wall of a reinforced concrete shelter built in 1911.

In September 1939 the shelter, manned by Polish soldiers, was one of the key defensive positions of the Military Transit Depot at the entrance to the port of Gdańsk. The depot's garrison held out against German forces for seven days.

A 1929-pattern bayonet and other ranks' buttons

Alongside the remains, archaeologists recovered the bayonet with its scabbard and the remains of a leather frog used to hang it from a military belt. They also found two Polish military buttons of the type worn by Polish Army privates in the 1920s, as well as items of equipment.

- Both the place where the remains were found and the items uncovered so far beside the bones seem to indicate that, after five years of intensive searching, we have located the burial place of legionnaire Mieczysław Krzak, who most probably died on the night of 2 September 1939 near the Fort outpost. This is, however, a hypothesis that can only be confirmed or refuted by genetic testing - said Filip Kuczma, head of the Archaeology Department at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk.

Two more defenders may lie on the peninsula

Analysis of historical sources indicates that the remains of two more Westerplatte defenders may still lie on the peninsula. Legionnaire was the term used for the depot's rank-and-file soldiers.

- For now we are cautious in our assessments. It is too early to say to whom the remains belong. If, however, they prove to be those of the missing Westerplatte defender, it would fulfil one of the most important tasks of the museum archaeologists researching Westerplatte - said Professor Rafał Wnuk, director of the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk.

Prosecutors, anthropologists and geneticists to establish identity

The Pomeranian Provincial Monuments Conservator and a prosecutor from the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in Gdańsk have been notified. The remains will be exhumed under the prosecutor's supervision with an anthropologist present.

The findings of the prosecutor, the anthropologist and the archaeologists, together with analyses carried out at the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, will establish the identity of the person and the circumstances of their death.