Female Jewish Prisoner's Jewelry Found in Auschwitz Death Camp

A stunning discovery was recently made in the former German concentration camp Auschwitz - Birkenau which now serves as a museum to commemorate victims of the Holocaust.

Despite the fact that over 70 years have already passed since the liberation of the prisoners of the former Nazi concentration camp, the museum's staff still finds items that belonged to the victims of Nazism that were hidden.

During their regular check-up, the museum's experts found an unusual mug that presumably belonged to a Polish woman of Jewish origin. The mug contained a gold ring and chain wrapped in a piece of cloth that, as experts learned, were manufactured in Poland in the period from 1921 to 1931. On the bottom of the mug there is the name of a Polish company which was well-known for producing sweets and chocolate.

"Specifically in this case, we know very little," museum employee Pawel Sawicki said in an interview with Sputnik. "Most likely, the mug was kept ‘for a rainy day' by a Polish woman of Jewish origin who became a victim of the Holocaust."

According to Sawicki, the woman was apparently deported to the death camp like many other Jews and was told she would get a new job.

"The Nazis deliberately concealed the truth from their victims, convincing poor people that at the new place they will certainly find a work. That is why these people took with them some valuables that could be useful for them in a difficult time and were hiding them as best as they could. […] People still hoped they would survive, the owner of this mug with a false bottom definitely wanted to stay alive!" Sawicki said.

The museum's employee stressed that every discovery of that kind has a very tragic story of a human life behind it.

"Behind each discovery there is always a human story, unfortunately, in this case the story is anonymous!" he said. "The Nazis did their best to destroy not only people themselves, but also to erase all memory of them! And our task is to preserve the memory of what happened, to preserve it for future generations!" Sawicki said.

In the period from 1940 to 1945, at least 1.1 million Jews, 140,000 Poles, 20,000 Gypsies, more than 10,000 Soviet war prisoners and over 10,000 prisoners of other nationalities died in the German concentration camp of Auschwitz. Just over 400,000 prisoners were registered, more than half of which died due to hardworking conditions, hunger, disease, medical tests and executions. The unregistered 900,000 deportees were murdered shortly after their arrival.