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.
