Massacre Most of the victims buried at Vinnytsia were killed using
.22 calibre bullets fired into the back of the neck. After a preliminary investigation conducted by Professor Schrader's team, two teams of medical examiners were invited—one international and the other made up of 13 experts from universities in
Nazi Germany. An international commission of experts in
anatomy and
forensic pathology were brought in from 11 countries in
Europe, predominantly from Nazi Germany's allied or occupied states. They were: • Dr. ,
Karolinska Institutet,
Stockholm,
Kingdom of Sweden. • Dr. Krsek,
University of Bratislava,
Slovak Republic. • Dr. ,
University of Budapest,
Kingdom of Hungary. The group visited the mass graves between July 13 and July 15, 1943. The Nazi German commission completed its report on July 29, 1943. Both commissions determined that almost all of the victims were executed by two shots in the back of the head between 1937 and 1938. , in accordance with the Nazi idea of "
Judeo-Bolshevism". 468 bodies were identified by people of Vinnytsia and the surroundings; the other 202 were identified on the basis of documents and evidence found in the graves. Most bodies that were identified this way were Ukrainians; there were also 28 bodies that were identified as ethnic
Poles.
Later history Besides the original group of thirteen, several other delegations visited the sites in mid-1943. Among them were politicians and other officials from
Kingdom of Bulgaria,
Occupied Denmark,
Occupied Greece,
Republic of Finland, and
Kingdom of Sweden. Photos and results of the investigation were published in many countries in Europe, and were used by Nazi Germany in the propaganda war against the Soviet Union. Around the time of the reburials, funds were raised to erect a temporary obelisk with the inscription "Victims of
Stalinism are buried here". After the Soviets retook Vinnytsia in March 1944, authorities rededicated the monument to victims of fascism, finally completely removing it and creating an entertainment park in its place. In the last ten years a new monument has been constructed at the burial site in the park; it only refers to "Victims of Totalitarianism". During Soviet times, information about the massacre was disseminated and investigated by the
Ukrainian diaspora in the West. The mass murder in Vinnytsia returned as a critical topic in Ukraine in 1988. ==See also==