More than 300 tiny pieces of human tissue from prisoners executed in Nazi-era Berlin will be buried on Monday.
The samples were found in microscopic slides at a property that belonged to Hermann Stieve – an anatomy professor at the Charité university hospital.
Heirs of the doctor, who died in 1952, discovered the collection in 2016.
Researchers say Stieve systematically collaborated with the Nazis to receive the bodies of 184 people, mostly women, executed for political resistance.
The tissue pieces – most less than a millimetre long – were discovered at Stieve’s estate, stored in small black boxes, including some labelled with names.
Once found, they were handed to Berlin’s Charité university hospital, who tasked staff at the German Resistance Memorial Center to research their history.
The ceremony will be held at 15:00 local time (13:00 GMT) at Berlin’s Dorotheenstadt Cemetery. The grave is near an existing memorial to victims of the Nazis.
Research under Prof Tuchel shows that bodies were picked up by a driver and taken to Stieve, sometimes just minutes after they were killed at Berlin-Plötzensee prison.
He then dissected them for research, before discreetly cremating and interring their bodies anonymously.
Prof Tuchel told the BBC that Stieve’s dissections took place in 1942-1943. He sent the bodies to Wilmersdorf for cremation and later sent the victims’ ashes to Parkfriedhof Marzahn, a Berlin cemetery.
“He did not deal with concentration camp victims,” Prof Tuchel said, adding that Stieve “did not work with Nazi doctors”.
Almost 3,000 people were executed at Plötzensee by beheading or hanging while Hitler was in power.
