Mementoes of WWII camp victims returned to families

Stanislawa Wasilewska was 42 when she was captured by Nazi German troops on 31 August 1944 in Warsaw and sent to the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück.

- MONIKA SCISLOWSKA

From there, she was sent to the Neuengamme forced labour camp, where she was given prisoner number 7257 and had her valuables seized.

Eighty years later, Germany’s Arolsen Archives returned Ms Wasilewska's jewellery to her grandson and great-granddaughter at an emotional ceremony in Warsaw during which families of 12 Polish inmates of Nazi concentration camps were given back their confiscated belongings.

Some relatives had tears in their eyes as they received the mementoes of their long-gone, often unknown family members. More such ceremonies are planned. Ms Wasilewska’s family were given back her two amber crucifixes, part of a golden bracelet and a gold wristwatch engraved with the initials KW and the date 7-3-1938, probably marking her wedding to Konstanty Wasilewski.

“This is an important moment in our lives, because this is a story that we did not fully know about and it came to light,” Wasilewska’s great-granddaughter, Malgorzata Korys, 35, she said.

When Nazi Germany was defeated in 1945, Ms Wasilewska was taken by the Red Cross from Neuengamme to Sweden, but later returned to Poland. She is buried in her native Grodzisk Mazowiecki, near Warsaw.