After 70 Years, Volunteers At Auschwitz Discovered A Hidden Secret In This Mug

It's been a lifetime but we continue to discover more secrets from the Holocaust.

Elana

• Published in Interesting
• June 26, 2021

During World War II there was a time where Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany. There, the Nazis had one of the most infamous concentration and extermination camps: Auschwitz.

During it's years of operation it is estimated that most of the 1.1 million to 1.5 million people who were murdered there were Jewish. Today, the site is both a Memorial site and Museum where the near countless lives ripped from the world can be honored and respected, and humanity can work hard to make sure no one forgets the atrocities or repeats them.

Since Auschwitz is a Museum, they have artifacts and among those artifacts are thousands of mugs once looted by Nazi soldiers or hidden by Jewish prisoners and refugees.

Recently, Auschwitz staff were prepping one such mug for exhibit when they noticed the 70 year old relic was not like every other one.

Well secured under a false bottom, this mug contained a ring and a necklace.

Profesional Historian and Director of Auschwitz Musesm Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński said in a press release:

“Despite the passage of more than 70 years since the liberation of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, there are still cases of accidental discovery of objects hidden by the victims.

The Germans incessantly lied to the Jews deported for extermination. They were told about resettlement, work and life in a different location. They allowed the victims take with them little luggage.”

Cywiński continued:

“In this way, the Germans were confident that in the luggage – including clothes and items needed for life – they would find the last valuables of the deported families.”

He also said:

"The hiding of valuable items - repeatedly mentioned in the accounts of survivors, and which was the reason for ripping and careful search of clothes and suitcases in the warehouse for looted items – so-called “Kanada” – proves on the one hand to 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"

The team at Auschwitz is maticulous about documenting all of their finds, but because there are no identifying factors on the jewelry, finding the original owners would be next to impossible.

In the museum's statement, Hannah Kubik said:

"The jewellery found in the mug will be stored in the Collections of the Museum in the form reflecting the manner in which it had been hidden by the owner, as a testimony to the fate of the Jews deported to the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp."

Elana