Nazi pogrom in Romania
Nazi pogrom in RomaniaIsrael news photo: Isurvived.org

Medical students at the Iasi University in Romania allegedly have been purchasing bones from mass Holocaust graves and using them for research, the European Jewish Press (EJP) reported. The Rabbinical Center of Europe has been investigating the charges.

The alleged practice came to light after an American student notified the rabbinical group that local students bought bones and skulls of victims of the Holocaust who were buried in a nearby village. The bones were reportedly sold for $40 a piece and were used in research in place of those made of plastic.

Thousands of students from all over the world attend the university, which includes a well-known school of medicine and pharmacy.

The Rabbinical Center sent two students to the university to pose as medical students in order to verify or deny the claim. A caretaker of the mass grave did not deny being involved in the sale of the bones but apparently was suspicious of the would-be buyers and referred them elsewhere.

One Jewish student, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said it was obvious the caretaker was concealing information, according to EJP.

Jewish medical students confirmed to the two ”students” that information about the sale of human bones was available throughout the university, but no single purchaser has been identified.

The price for the bones included the workers’ task to “clean them up nicely.”

One of two death trains that left Isai during the Nazi regime stopped in the village of Podu Iloaiei, where nearly 1,200 Jews were buried in a mass grave after dying of starvation.