Identification of Missing Norwegian World War II Soldiers, in Karelia Russia

Morild, Inge; Hamre, Stian S.; Huel, René; Parsons, Thomas J.

doi:10.1111/1556-4029.12767

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…The portion of the Battle of Karelia with which this article was concerned, took place on and between the two hills of Kaprolat and Hasselman . As the authors indicate, this may suggest a relatively constrained space; however, these hills account for several square miles of terrain.…”

Section: A Systematic Approach To the Identification Of Missing From mentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Many of the analytical methods of Morild et al. did not rely on historical contributions of this nature and were based on their own interpretation of the historical context, which lacked expert knowledge of the battle and was largely based on inferences from the historical narrative. Without the use of a professional historian, unsubstantiated narratives can lead to inaccurate interpretations, low numbers of identifications, and any number of errors or omissions throughout the recovery and identification process.…”

Section: The Added Value Of Subject‐matter Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their paper, Morild et al. describe a complex endeavor attempting to identify the remains of multiple WWII Norwegian soldiers associated with the Battle of Karelia . Primarily relying on DNA, the authors were able to identify 14 individuals, which had been recovered from multiple disturbed contexts throughout an undefined, but very large, forested area.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Identification of Missing Norwegian World War II Soldiers, in Karelia Russia. J Forensic Sci 2015;60(4):1104–10.

Passalacqua

Paz

Zejdlik

2016

Journal of Forensic Sciences

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Section: A Systematic Approach To the Identification Of Missing From mentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: The Added Value Of Subject‐matter Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Identification of Missing Norwegian World War II Soldiers, in Karelia Russia. J Forensic Sci 2015;60(4):1104–10.

Passalacqua

Paz

Zejdlik

2016

Journal of Forensic Sciences

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“…In recent years the recovery and analysis of DNA from skeletal remains has been applied to several contexts ranging from disaster victim identification to the identification of missing persons and the victims of war conflicts [2]. DNA analyses of WWII skeletons have been used for identifying victims from mass graves found in Poland [3], Bosnia and Herzegovina [4], Slovenia [5], Russia [6] and others. The Commission of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia on Concealed Mass Graves has registered more than 600 WWII hidden mass graves in the last 25 years.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Next generation sequencing technology in Second World War victim identification

Pajnič

Pogorelc

Zupanc

2019

Forensic Science International: Genetics Supplement Series

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The killings during the Second World War (WWII), with nearly 100,000 victims, is one of the greatest losses of life in Slovenia's modern history and most of the victims are still buried in hidden mass graves and remain unidentified. Identity, ancestry, and phenotypic SNPs, as well as STR markers are already used for solving various cases with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology. In this study, the Precision ID GlobalFiler NGS STR panel was used to identify the WWII victim that could not be identified with capillary electrophoresis (CE) analyses because limited statistical support was obtained after amplification of autosomal STRs using CE STR kits. Bones and teeth were analysed and compared to family references (nephew and niece on paternal line). Prior to DNA isolation 0.5 g of powder was decalcified. The DNA was purified in a Biorobot EZ1 device. The nuclear DNA of the samples was quantified with the PowerQuant kit. Because the recommended posterior probability (PP) of 99.9% was followed with the goal of high confidence of correct identification, the NGS STR Panel was used, and after the analysis of additional STR loci the statistical calculation showed a PP of 99.99986%, showing that a large enough number of genetic markers were analysed when identifying the skeletal remains of the aunt. PP value endorsed the hypothesis that the tooth and bone samples were from individual related to the family references rather than from unrelated individual. In presented case, NGS technology proved to be a powerful tool for increasing the number of autosomal STRs needed for identification of WWII victims when linear markers cannot be used for comparison and only distant relatives are available for analyses.

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“…Thank you for the opportunity to reply to Passalacqua, Zejdlik, and De La Paz's comments on our article about identification of missing Norwegian soldiers .…”

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confidence: 98%

Author's Response

Morild

2016

Journal of Forensic Sciences

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Sir,Thank you for the opportunity to reply to Passalacqua, Zejdlik, and De La Paz's (1) comments on our article about identification of missing Norwegian soldiers (2).We are very pleased that our article has been read, and we agree with the commenting authors' intent to design such projects as a multidisciplinary task. This is exactly what we have done in the project, as stated at the beginning of our paper. We are still of the opinion that even though we did not have the critics' obvious enormous resources, a small team like ours can perform, and has performed, all that the critics described to perform such a project. We therefore feel that the criticism is unjustified.The critics have no information of how we worked, other than the brief description in the paper. They therefore seem to assume that we did not fulfill the criteria they deem as appropriate for such projects. It seems as if the strongest criticism is that we did not have historians on our team. This comment is repeated over and over again, but we do not understand how they can come to this incorrect conclusion, as two extremely experienced historians were in the group. One of them, the initiator of the project, a professor of comparative politics, has numerous publications on WWII subjects, including a book with details of the battle, and with numerous references in English, German, and Norwegian (3). We did extensive research before the start of the project and are of the opinion that this part of their letter has no basis in reality.Before commenting further on the criticism, we must add that this project was not easy to perform. Originally, the Norwegian authorities would not support the project, due to the status of the victims. It was therefore not possible for the ID-Team in the National Criminal Investigation Service in Norway to perform the examinations, which normally would have been the procedure. We therefore had to put together an ad hoc team of volunteers. Our small team consisted of historians, lawyers, a forensic anthropologist, and a forensic pathologist. In Norway, we feel it is very important to have forensic pathologists on such teams, in contrast to the DPAA. Several forensic odontologists were available for the team, but were not needed due to the lack of ante mortem odontological information. Contrary to the DPAA, we did not have archeologists in the group because of a restricted budget. Therefore, we could not do an extensive excavation of this enormous, remote battlefield which included both land and water. However, a number of locals who knew the battle area very well were included in the team. These well-trained individuals had, after years of searching the area, developed a special sense for detecting small variations in the landscape indicating some possible findings, perhaps better than any archeologist new to the area. In addition, the team's anthropologist has many years of archeological experience with medieval sites.It is also difficult for such an "unofficial" team to do excavation and digging inside a foreign coun...

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Identification of Missing Norwegian World War II Soldiers, in Karelia Russia

Cited by 22 publications

References 27 publications

Identification of Missing Norwegian World War II Soldiers, in Karelia Russia. J Forensic Sci 2015;60(4):1104–10.

Identification of Missing Norwegian World War II Soldiers, in Karelia Russia. J Forensic Sci 2015;60(4):1104–10.

Next generation sequencing technology in Second World War victim identification

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