June 22


POLAND:

Jewish relics uncovered near Auschwitz


Archeologists searching for Jewish religious relics at the site of a
synagogue near the former Auschwitz death camp have found a treasure trove
of menorahs and candelabra lost since the Nazis burned down the building
in 1939, officials said Tuesday.

The objects were found Monday in Oswiecim, in southern Poland, after more
than three weeks of excavation work.

Among the finding were candelabra decorated with symbolic eagles of
Poland and the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, which controlled the area
until World War I, an indication that the objects could date from the
19th century, said Tomasz Kuncewicz, director of the Auschwitz Jewish
Center.

The relics are rusted, but still intact, and researchers won't know their
value until they have more time to study them.

Kuncewicz said he believed members of the Jewish community hid them in
haste to keep them from falling into Nazi hands.

"It was very clear that these objects were hidden in a rush because they
were just put under the synagogue's floor and hidden there," Kuncewicz
said. "They weren't covered."

That assessment is shared by the group that funded the excavation, the
New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

"Sixty years ago, the Jews of Oswiecim buried their treasured religious
objects in desperation, fervently hoping to save their heritage from
oblivion," the group's chairman, Julius Berman, said in a statement. "We
have helped to recover a small part of the community's rich and vibrant
history, which was wiped out by the Nazi onslaught."

But Adam Druks, a 75-year-old native of Oswiecim and archaeologist
involved in the project, said he believes community members put the
candelabra below ground for safekeeping when they were no longer needed --
either when electricity was installed in Oswiecim in 1928, or much
earlier when gas lighting became available.

Objects hidden from the Nazis in 1939 -- including a Torah scroll not yet
uncovered -- will probably never be found, Druks said.

"I think the Nazis must have destroyed them," Druks said.

The synagogue was the largest of about a dozen in Oswiecim.

More than 1 million people died at the town's Auschwitz camp, 90 percent
of them Jews.

"These discoveries remind us that before the Nazis built Auschwitz, there
was a thriving Jewish town of Oswiecim," Berman said.

About 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland before the war. There are only
about 20,000 Jews living in Poland today.

(source: Associated Press)