Police in northern Greece say they have recovered more than 600 marble headstones and other fragments from Jewish graves destroyed during the Nazi occupation in World War II � a find that local Jewish groups have described as highly significant.

The 668 fragments were found buried in a plot of land in central Thessaloniki, Greece�s second largest city, following a 70-year search for the remains of graves smashed when the city�s main Jewish cemetery was destroyed.

The head of the city�s Jewish community, David Saltiel, said Thursday most of the gravestones found dated from the mid-1800s up until World War II.

An estimated 60,000 Greek Jews, most of the country�s prewar Jewish population, were killed in the Holocaust.

(AP)