Tiny Forbidden Pendant Unearthed in Auschwitz Attic
Image by Getty Images
– A tiny carved wooden clog that once belonged to a woman the Nazis deported to the Auschwitz death camp has been discovered after more than 70 years.
Smaller than a matchstick, the pendant “is a real piece of art from Auschwitz,” Agnieszka Molenda, who runs the Foundation of Memory Sites near Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, told the Daily Mail last week about the recent discovery of the object in an attic of a barrack at Auschwitz.
Prisoners were not allowed to make, wear or own such items. Violating the prohibition could mean a swift execution or savage beating.
“The tiny carved clog is just 7 millimeters [0.28 inches] long and hangs on a small chain, indicating that a prisoner wore it as jewelry,” she said.
The object’s origin and owner remain a mystery.
It was found this month during maintenance work in the attic of a building of the Budy-Bor Auschwitz subcamp, near the main death camp set up by Nazi Germany during World War II in occupied Poland.
The building was the site of a bloody massacre on Oct. 5, 1942, when camp guards bludgeoned to death 90 French-Jewish female prisoners.
The discovery triggered some speculation in the Dutch media that the clog, a national symbol in the Netherlands, belonged to a Holocaust victim from that country.
A message from our editor-in-chief Jodi Rudoren
We're building on 127 years of independent journalism to help you develop deeper connections to what it means to be Jewish today.
With so much at stake for the Jewish people right now — war, rising antisemitism, a high-stakes U.S. presidential election — American Jews depend on the Forward's perspective, integrity and courage.
— Jodi Rudoren, Editor-in-Chief
