2024-04-08 15:15 update: 2024-04-09, 20:00
Photo PAP/Leszek Szymański
An archive in Germany has initiated a social campaign to locate the families of victims of the Warsaw Uprising in order to return their personal belongings, according to the newspaper Rzeczpospolita.
The 'Warsaw Uprising – Unknown Stories' campaign, organised by the Arolson Archive, aims to return to families the contents of around 100 containers of personal belongings still in its possession.
Taken during the Uprising, the items were seized from individuals who later perished in concentration camps.
Containers with the personal belongings of Warsaw residents are part of a collection of 2,500 deposits from World War Two kept in the Arolsen Archives, the world's largest archive on the victims and survivors of the Nazi regime.
"These items were taken from the victims and should be returned," said Floriane Azoulay, the archive's director. "As the owners of these items are no longer among us, we are returning them to the relatives, who we are trying to locate, as part of the 'Stolen-Memory campaign.'"
The organisers of the campaign are calling on organisations, educational institutions, the media, and private citizens to assist in finding the families of the victims.
The 'Stolen-Memory' campaign, which began in 2016, has already successfully found nearly 900 families worldwide, including almost 300 in Poland. As many as 650 of the nearly 2,500 objects that are now awaiting return belonged to Polish citizens, according to the newspaper.
Breaking out on August 1, 1944, the Warsaw Uprising was one of the bloodiest battles of World War Two, claiming the lives of over 200,000 people. (PAP)
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