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Interesting Find Added to Collections

Feb. 15, Bielsko-Biała (PAP—Polish Press Agency) – Preservation specialists found several objects belonging to prisoners while carrying out renovation work at the site of Auschwitz, the German camp. They include a pair of earmuffs worn by prisoners during the winter, Museum collections department head Igor Bartosik said on Wednesday.

“The earmuffs consist of two pieces of felt held together with a metal spring. We had nothing like this in the collection,” he added, “which makes all the happier about the find.”

Found along with the earmuffs was some cutlery, including a fork marked with a swastika, suggesting that it came from the SS canteen. Preservation specialists also turned up some coins and parts of a gold watch.

Bartosik said on Wednesday that other new additions to the collections include a medal and a crucifix made in 1944 by Auschwitz prisoner Zbigniew Raynoch, and donated by his family. These items were illegally taken out of the camp by the Austrian Maria Stromberger, the Red Cross head nurse at the SS infirmary, and given to Raynoch’s family in Cracow. A member of the resistance movement in the camp, Raynoch committed suicide during an escape attempt that went wrong on October 27, 1944.

These are only the latest in a series of interesting finds at the Auschwitz site in recent months. Last year, collections department head Bartosik found a metal device used to carry corpses at the Auschwitz-II Birkenau site, the only extant item of its kind. Metal trays used by prisoners were unearthed during the renovation of the kitchen building. (PAP)