In the late summer of 1944, Stanislawa Wasilewska, a 42-year-old woman from Warsaw, was seized by Nazi German forces and transported to the women's concentration camp at Ravensbrck.
Subsequently, she was relocated to the Neuengamme forced labor camp, where she was assigned the prisoner number 7257 and stripped of her personal belongings.
As reported by CBS News, eight decades after these harrowing events, Germany's Arolsen Archives returned Wasilewska's confiscated jewelry to her descendants. In an emotionally charged ceremony in Warsaw, the families of 12 Polish inmates of Nazi concentration camps were presented with their ancestors' belongings that had been seized during their internment.
The recipients, some of whom were visibly moved, were handed the personal effects of their long-deceased, often unfamiliar relatives. Future ceremonies of this nature are in the pipeline. Among the items returned to Wasilewska's family were two amber crucifixes, a fragment of a golden bracelet, and a gold wristwatch engraved with the initials KW and the date 7-3-1938, presumably commemorating her marriage to Konstanty Wasilewski.
"This is an important moment in our lives, because this is a story that we did not fully know about and it came to light," said Malgorzata Kory?, Wasilewska's 35-year-old great-granddaughter. After the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the Red Cross transported Wasilewska from Neuengamme to Sweden. However, she later returned to Poland and was laid to rest in her hometown of Grodzisk Mazowiecki, near Warsaw.
Adam Wierzbicki, a 29-year-old descendant of another family, received two rings that had belonged to Zofia Strusi?ska and a golden chain and tooth filling that were the property of Jzefa Skrka, two married sisters of his great-grandfather Stanislaw Wierzbicki. Like Wasilewska, the sisters were captured on August 4, transported through Ravensbrck and Neuengamme, and eventually taken to Sweden by the Red Cross.
Wierzbicki shared a family anecdote about a Swedish man who fell in love with one of the sisters and offered to care for them both if they stayed in Sweden. However, the sisters chose to return to Poland. "The return of their jewelry is important for sentimental reasons but also for historical reasons," Wierzbicki stated.
The Arolsen Archives, an international center focused on Nazi persecution, facilitated the return of these items. The archives house information on approximately 17.5 million individuals and store around 2,000 items seized by the Nazis from concentration camp inmates from over 30 countries. These items are intended to be returned to their rightful owners' relatives.
The valuables confiscated from the prisoners, including wedding rings, watches, gold chains, earrings, and other items, were stored in envelopes bearing their owners' names. This meticulous record-keeping has enabled the return of these items to the families, albeit decades later.
However, countless other family treasures have been irretrievably lost, including some valuables passed down through generations by former Nazi party members. In a notable case last year, the esteemed auction house Christie's cancelled the sale of a collection of jewels that had belonged to Austrian billionaire Heidi Horten after a report revealed her husband had been a Nazi party member and had amassed his wealth under their regime.
Wierzbicki described the moment he was contacted by the archives volunteers as uplifting, but also a stark reminder that "history will catch up with you. It was like my aunts were looking at me from the past."
The archives initiated its restitution campaign, "Warsaw Uprising: 100 Untold Stories," to commemorate 80 years since the city's resistance against the Nazi invaders on August 1, 1944. The campaign aims to reach the families of 100 victims and revive the memory of them through their belongings.
Floriane Azoulay, the director of the archives, emphasized that they were merely custodians of the belongings, which should be returned to the families. "Every object that we return is personal," Azoulay said. "And it's the last personal thing a person had on them before they became a prisoner, before they became a number. So it is a very important object for a family."
Volunteer Manuela Golc, who has located more than 100 Polish families, described each reunion as an emotional moment. "It is often the case that we pass on information that the family was not aware of at all," Golc said. "So this conversation on the phone ... is also very difficult. But in the end we are very happy that the memento is returning to the family."
If she was unable to trace a family online or through official records, she would visit cemeteries, leaving waterproofed notes on the graves of people whose data matched those in the archives, requesting them to get in touch. Occasionally, they do.
The Warsaw Uprising was a courageous attempt by the underground resistance Home Army to seize control of the capital city ahead of the advancing Soviet troops. After 63 days of heroic struggle, the uprising was quelled, resulting in the loss of approximately 200,000 fighters and civilians. In retaliation, the Germans expelled the surviving residents and reduced Warsaw to ruins.
During the German occupation from 1939 to 1945, Poland lost around 6 million residents, half of them Jewish, and suffered immense material losses. The return of these personal belongings, while a small gesture, serves as a poignant reminder of the human cost of this dark chapter in history.
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