Dozens of brains and other body parts of Holocaust victims were discovered at the Max Planck Psychiatric Institute in Munich, Germany, when the building was undergoing renovations.

The remains of the bodies are reported to have belonged to victims of the Holocaust who were subjected to Nazi experiments, including children, the mentally ill, and the physically disabled, the Institute said in a statement.

The samples were likely used by Nazi brain researcher Julius Hallervorden, who conducted experiments on humans during and after the Nazi era, and even served as the Institute’s head of neuropathology in 1938.

The Institute, at the time called the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, often received human body parts from the Nazis, including from the notorious Auschwitz physician Josef Mengele.

The findings prompted an investigative committee to be formed in order to review the samples. The committee has begun identifying some of the victims with the eventual goal of burying them in a mass grave, a process that could take years.

Speaking to the Israeli radio, Dan Machman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum said, “It’s surprising, although not completely. We know that experiments were conducted and that not everything was erased and buried. Two years ago, bones of victims on whom experiments were conducted were found in Berlin in the trash. Next year, we’re going to organize a convention about this issue.’’