Jewish Treasure from World War II

Last week, a Jewish treasure from the Second World War was uncovered during construction work in Polocka Street in Łódź. In the last six months, this is the second similar set of objects stored in fear of the Nazis, quite possibly collected by several families together before being transported to a concentration camp.

The magistrate on Wednesday released the first images of some of the items found, including candlesticks, jewelry, watches, coins and clothing. Archaeologists are now examining the finds. Before World War II, the street was almost exclusively Jewish. On the same street here in January (also a construction site), 400 items were discovered, including a menorah, candlesticks, jewelry, rings and many other items made of glass, silver and other metals. Researchers believe that these items belonged to Jews who hid them after the start of World War II in the hope that they would one day return and retrieve them.

"Not too long ago, we completed our research and identified descendants with a direct link to the address where the treasure was found in January," said Meir Bulka, who works to preserve the heritage of Polish Jewry through the J-nerations organization. "The new finds lay near this address, and it is clearly a recurring phenomenon - Jews hid valuable possessions for the benefit of anyone who returned from hell. I urge the magistrate to work with Jewish organizations that deal with the identification of descendants, as these are private property of Jewish victims who also sometimes have heirs," he added.

After the start of the Second War, Lodz was the second largest city in Poland, with 233,000 Jews, about a third of its population. The Germans occupied the city on Sept. 8, 1939. In November, the city's main synagogues were set on fire, and in May 1940 the city's Jews were imprisoned in the ghetto. According to Yad Vashem, the memorial to the victims and heroes of the Holocaust, of the 204,000 people imprisoned in the Jewish ghetto, only 7-10,000 survived.

Roman Němec

Sources: lodz.pl, haaretz.co.il