Thessaloniki, Greece - Workers installed benches in the park in Thessaloniki, an ancient Greek port city, when their excavators pushed brown soil out of the fragile white skull.

They turned off the electric equipment and started using picking and shovels. The crew found two bones and found more. By March, in the shadow of Byzantine Fortress, 33 bundles of bones were placed in an unmarked tomb.

“We found a lot of bullets on our heads.

It is common to find ancient remains or objects in Greece. But the clumsy Yedi Kule Castle was a prison where communist sympathizers were tortured and executed during the 1946-49 civil war in Greece. In early Cold War battles between Western-backed government forces and left-wing insurgents, thousands died, brutal clashes with assassination squads, child abduction and mass displacement.

The archaeological services in Greece cleared the development site because the bones were less than 100 years old. But authorities in the coastal city of Thessaloniki, the suburb of Neapolis-Sykies, took root in the excavation, saying the opportunity to discover "the importance of history and the country".

Descendants have come in recent weeks, leaving the flowers, asking authorities to do DNA testing: "so that they can retrieve the remains of their grandfather, great-grandfather or uncle," said Simos Daniilidis, who has served as mayor of Naeapolis-Sykies since 1994.

According to historians and the Greek Communist Party, as many as 400 Yedi Kule prisoners were indicted. Items found with corpses - women's shoes, handbags, rings - can glimpse into life.

For families of the murdered pro-Communist Greeks, the discovery of the National Resistance Park is restoring wartime heritage to avoid reigniting the old enemy. The small ruins have become the first mass grave of the civil war in Greece.

Government forces executed 19-year-old Agapios Sachinis after refusing to sign a declaration to abandon his political beliefs.

"These are not simple things," his nephew of the same name said on a recent visit to the site.

“It’s not only about moving in, but also about compromising values ​​and dignity that won’t even save your own life,” said Agapios Sachinis, 78.

Sachinis, a retired communist city council member, was imprisoned in the 1960s for his political activities during his dictatorship. Today, the Greek Communist Party is politically mainstream, thanks in large part to its role in the country's World War II resistance.

He said that if the remains of Sachinis' uncle were identified, he would cremate them and place the ashes in his home.

"Agapios are near me at least when I'm still alive," he said.

The Greek civil war began after World War II. It soon lost international attention after the continent-wide destruction, but the conflict marked a turning point: U.S. President Harry Truman's anti-communist intervention policy - Truman's doctrine - was proposed to Congress in 1947 as a means to provide direct funding and military support directly to Greece.

Then, etching on the newly excavated bones of Thessaloniki is a script that continues to produce decades of repression, social division and more unmarked graves in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The government later addressed the painful choices faced by the abuse and atrocities of the Cold War era: in the commissions of inquiry in Eastern Europe and many Latin American countries, the pain of the past was discovered or suppressed by fear of fresh division.

The Greek emergency laws were gradually lifted and were completely abolished in 1989 only. Records of summary trials and executions were never made public. There is no political force to promote excavation of suspected burial sites.

In addressing the past, politicians still use highly cautious language, and Thessaloniki's findings were also met with public reaction. The discovery has not been directly addressed by the country's center-right government, a reminder that many Greeks still find it much easier to walk through the country than to face them.

Decades ago, Thessaloniki's neighborhood park was a densely populated port city with a million ruins from ancient Greece, Roman and Ottoman eras, and a historically strong Balkan and Jewish influence - an area of ​​the city's suburbs. Today, retirees are frequented by and are being clattered by apartment buildings filled with middle-class families. During the construction period, residents whispered that the bones were found while laying the foundation, but no inquiry was made.

The execution of the Army Fire Squad extended into the 1950s and was publicly announced, but the grave was not marked or secret. Thessaloniki author and historian Spyros Kouzinopoulos spent decades studying the executions at Yedi Kule, which included insults the prisoners suffered in the last few hours.

After the military court sentenced to death, the chief guard brought the condemned prisoner to solitary confinement in a small cell, almost inadequate to stand. Many people use their last few hours to write to their families. At dawn, the chief guard and two other generals retrieved the prisoners and handed them over to the shooting squad. Most people are loaded on trucks to avoid attracting public attention. Sometimes they are killed by walking.

Most victims have few adults - youth kouzinopoulos are known as "the flower of this generation".

He said two 17-year-old schoolgirls, Efpraxia Nikolaidou and Eva Kourouzidou, were executed while wearing their uniforms.

“It shocked me to the core,” Kuznopoulos said.

City officials are taking steps to perform DNA testing on the remains and urging missing families to submit genetic material. In this way, the body can be identified and the relative can be returned to.

The uncle was executed, Septuagenarian Agapios Sachinis, was one of those who were eager to provide DNA.

Mayor Daniilidis ordered the expansion of DIG to other areas of the park in the coming weeks.

"We have to send messages," he said. "Never again."

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AP reporter Derek Gatopoulos contributed to the report in Athens, Greece.