70 years ago it was hidden and now we discovered it.

[marylander1940]

Auschwitz mug reveals jewelry hidden 70 years ago

 

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/4422/production/_89724471_20160512_kubek_1.jpgImage copyright Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

Image caption Time and rust eroded the double-bottomed cup, revealing its secrets

An enamel mug, one of thousands of exhibits at the Auschwitz museum, has been hiding a secret for over 70 years - a gold ring and necklace.

 

Curators discovered the jewelry during maintenance work on its collection of enamel kitchenware.

 

The jewelry had been concealed beneath the mug's fake bottom, which gradually eroded over time.

 

Many Jews hid valuable items in their luggage when they were deported to Nazi death camps such as Auschwitz.

 

Some 1.1 million Jews and more than 100,000 other prisoners were murdered between 1940 and 1945 at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.

 

 

'Ray of hope'

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum said the jewellery - like other objects accidentally discovered - would be carefully documented and secured, but warned that the likelihood of finding the owners was slim "because there are no traces left on the objects to help identify them".

 

The mug is one of 12,000 cups, pots, bowls, kettles and jugs held by the museum; items looted by German forces from the luggage of people who arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War Two.

 

"It turned out that one of the mugs has a double bottom," said Hanna Kubik of the museum's Memorial Collections. "It was very well hidden; however, due to the passage of time, the materials underwent gradual degradation, and the second bottom separated from the mug."

 

Inside, they found a woman's ring made of gold and a necklace wrapped in a piece of canvas - and tests have concluded the pieces were made in Poland between 1921 and 1931.

 

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/103B2/production/_89728466_89728465.jpg

 

Image copyright Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

Image caption The ring is believed to have been produced in Poland in the 1920s

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/178E2/production/_89728469_20160512_kubek_8.jpgImage copyright Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum

Image caption The ring and necklace are now carefully preserved - but will their owners ever be traced?

The hiding of valuable objects is repeatedly mentioned in the accounts of survivors of the camps, said museum director Dr Piotr Cywinski.

 

He said the Nazis "incessantly lied" to the Jewish people being rounded up - saying they were being resettled and could take a small amount luggage.

 

In this way, the Germans could be "confident" that they would find "the last valuables of the deported families", he added.

 

The fact that some of these items were hidden "proves on the one hand the awareness of the victims as to the robbery nature of the deportation, but on the other hand it shows that the Jewish families constantly had a ray of hope that these items will be required for their existence".

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36319693

[+ glennnn]

Incredibly sad!

[marylander1940]

Incredibly sad!

 

We'll never know the love story behind that ring.

[seaboy4hire]

Although not jewelry the jewish museum in Skokie, IL has some personal items from that era and I don't know but for me it was quite emotional. There were a pile of shoes and a train car that may had been used to transport people. It was so very emotional seeing personal belongings and goong into the train car that I nearly beoke down and bawled like a baby. Just thinking about it right now is almost making me weep. The shoes, the train car and the above items were personal items the stories they could tell if they could only talk. The happiness, joy, pain and sorrow felt by the owners could fill countless never ending volumes.

 

Hugs,

Greg

[marylander1940]

Incredibly sad!

 

Although not jewelry the jewish museum in Skokie, IL has some personal items from that era and I don't know but for me it was quite emotional. There were a pile of shoes and a train car that may had been used to transport people. It was so very emotional seeing personal belongings and goong into the train car that I nearly beoke down and bawled like a baby. Just thinking about it right now is almost making me weep. The shoes, the train car and the above items were personal items the stories they could tell if they could only talk. The happiness, joy, pain and sorrow felt by the owners could fill countless never ending volumes.

 

Hugs,

Greg

 

This was just discovered.

 

[ATTACH=full]1312[/ATTACH]

 

Warsaw (AFP) - A tiny carved wooden clog that once belonged to a woman the Nazis deported to the Auschwitz death camp has been rediscovered after more than 70 years, a local foundation told AFP on Thursday.

 

Smaller than a matchstick, the charm "is a real piece of art from Auschwitz," said Agnieszka Molenda, who runs the Foundation of Memory Sites near Auschwitz-Birkenau (FPMP).

 

"The tiny carved clog is just seven millimetres (0.28 inches) long and hangs on a small chain, indicating that a prisoner wore it as jewellery," she said, adding that its origin and owner remain a mystery.

 

Auschwitz prisoners were banned from making or wearing any such items and according to Molenda the charm could have been a tiny symbol of resistance.

 

It was found this month during maintenance work in the attic of a building of the Budy-Bor Auschwitz subcamp, near the main death camp set up by Nazi Germany during World War II in occupied Poland.

 

The building was the site of a bloody massacre on October 5, 1942, when camp guards bludgeoned to death 90 French-Jewish female prisoners.

 

"The clog was most likely hidden between the bricks of wall of the attic where prisoners slept and could have belonged to one of the victims of the massacre," Molenda told AFP.

 

Set up in 2013 by private collectors with a passion for local history, the FPMP gathers items related to the death camp and its nearby subcamps that covered some 40 square kilometres (15 square miles).

 

Working with the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum on the site of the former Nazi death camp in Osciecim, southern Poland, the foundation has collected thousands of items kept in private homes since the war.

 

In September, it unveiled a porcelain Mickey Mouse figurine that once belonged to a child the Nazis deported to Auschwitz.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/news/tiny-wooden-clog-charm-resurfaces-auschwitz-132344740.html

[Epigonos]

How very sad and how very touching. After all these years the horror of it all never ceases to amaze.

[seaboy4hire]

Thanks for reviving the thread! Reminds me that I prob should take a friend of mine visiting during the new year.

 

Hugs,

Greg