Message in a bottle found in wall

Antipodean Andy · Apr 27, 2009

Workers find message hidden in Auschwitz wall - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Workers demolishing the wall of a building that once belonged to the former Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp have found a message in a bottle written by prisoners 65 years ago, Auschwitz museum officials said.

"We know two of the Auschwitz prisoners who signed the message survived the camp, but their later fate isn't known," Auschwitz-Birkenau museum historian Jerzy Mensfelt told AFP in a telephone interview.

"If they are alive, they would be in their 80s now. Perhaps the publicity surrounding this discovery will lead to more information," he said.

Workers found the bottled message when recently demolishing a wall at the State Higher Vocational School in the southern Polish town of Oswiecim, the site of the infamous World War II Auschwitz Nazi German death camp.

The bottle with a note inside had been placed in the mortar of a wall of building which had served as a warehouse for the camp's Nazi guards during the war.

Hand-written in pencil, the note bears the names and camp ID numbers of seven camp prisoners including four Poles and one Frenchman from Lyon, Mr Mensfelt confirmed. All were aged 18 to 20.

Further details are expected to be made public in the coming days, he said.

More than 1 million people, mostly European Jews, perished at the Auschwitz-Birkenau twin death camps during World War Two.

Nazi Germany established Auschwitz as part of Adolf Hitler's systematic genocide against European Jews. In total, 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust.

Others who died there as well included tens of thousands of non-Jewish Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Romas (gypsies) and anti-Nazi resistance fighters from across Europe.
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liverpool annie · Apr 27, 2009

Imagine the feelings if they were your relatives !!

I think I would be in a state of euphoria

Antipodean Andy · Apr 28, 2009

Auschwitz survivor baffled by bottle message - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

A French Holocaust survivor whose name was found in a bottled message on the grounds of Auschwitz this week says the discovery is a "mystery" to him.

Museum officials said on Monday that workers demolishing a wall that was once part of the Nazi death camp in Poland had found a hand-written message apparently signed by seven prisoners, only two of whom survived.

"I am a little shaken up by this bottle business - it's a mystery," Albert Veissid, now a sprightly 84-year-old, said at his home in Allauch in south-eastern France.

"It's incredible. I remember everything from the camp, from A to Z. As I speak to you now, I can see the images before my eyes.

"But this bottle business is an enigma. The biggest surprise of my life," said the former fairground worker, who was arrested by collaborationist French authorities in 1943 and deported to Poland the following year.

Dated September 20, 1944, the message listed the names and camp ID numbers of seven Auschwitz prisoners aged 18 to 20, all Polish nationals except for Mr Veissid, who worked together on the construction of an air raid shelter.

Workers found it packed inside the mortar of a wall of a building in the southern Polish town of Oswiecim that served as a warehouse for the camp's Nazi guards during World War II, and is now part of a local high school.

Mr Veissid said he remembered meeting the six Poles in question while working as a builder at the camp.

"It's true I did them some favours. There was food supplied upstairs and they used to steal tubs of marmalade, which I would hide downstairs," he said.

"Maybe they wrote my name in the bottle as a way of thanking me."

Further details about the message are expected to be made public in the coming days, the Auschwitz museum said.

Mr Veissid said he had spoken little about his experiences at Auschwitz, declining to give speeches in schools on his time there.

"But since this story intrigues me, I decided to play the game for once. It's a revolution for me."

Born into a Jewish family in Istanbul - then known as Constantinople - in 1924, Mr Veissid arrived in the south-eastern French city of Lyon as a baby.

As a young man he worked as a musician and a sweet-store vendor, before being deported.

He survived until Auschwitz was evacuated in January 1945, when he walked across Germany to France, arriving in a state so emaciated that his family struggled to recognise him.

"I was a walking skeleton. One more week and I wouldn't have made it back," said Mr Veissid, who took up work as a musician then as a salesman after recovering his health.

More than 1 million people, most of them European Jews, were killed at the twin Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi camps during World War II. In total, 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

Others who died at Auschwitz included tens of thousands of non-Jewish Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Romas (gypsies) and anti-Nazi resistance fighters from across Europe.
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liverpool annie · Apr 28, 2009

List of prisoners from Auschwitz found after 65 years

The bottle with a list of seven prisoners from Auschwitz was found in National High School in Oswiecim by building workers. The building was a constituent part of a death camp in Auschwitz – informed the school.

The bottle was set into the wall in a shelter 65 years ago, probably by workers. There was a piece of rolled paper with seven names of construction workers:
“Concentration camp in Oswiecim, 20.IX.44, an air-raid shelter for support service T.W.L. It was built by prisoners: nr 121313 Bronisław Jankowiak from Poznan, 130208 Stanislaw Dubla from Laskowice in Tarnow county, 131491 Jan Jasik from Radom, 145664 Waclaw Sobczak from Konin, 151090 Karol Czekalski from Lodz, 157582 Waldemar Bialobrzeski from Ostroleka, A 12063 Albert Veissid from Lyon (France). All of us aged 18-20”

News Poland - List of prisoners from Auschwitz found after 65 years

Antipodean Andy · May 5, 2009

'My dad wrote Auschwitz bottle message' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

The daughter of one of seven men whose names were in a bottled message found on the grounds of Auschwitz this week said that her late father, who fled to Sweden after the war, had written the note.

"I recognised the handwriting. It must be my father's handwriting," Irene Jankowiak told AFP by telephone from her home in Uppsala, north of Stockholm.

"We have compared it to other things he has written, we have old letters and things that he wrote in 1945 in a diary so I'm 100 per cent sure actually," she said.

Her father's name, Bronislaw Jankowiak, appears in a message dated September 20, 1944, listing the names and camp ID numbers of seven Auschwitz prisoners aged 18 to 20, all Polish nationals except for one, who worked together on the construction of an air shelter.

Workers found the bottle packed inside the mortar of a wall of a building in the southern Polish town of Oswiecim that served as a warehouse for the camp's Nazi guards during World War Two, now part of a local high school.

Born in 1926 in Poznan, Bronislaw Jankowiak, a Catholic Pole who was sent to the camp in 1943, fled to Sweden in 1945 where he worked in a factory for typewriters and calculators in Aatvidaberg, in southern Sweden, where he died in 1997.

Told about the discovery of the bottled message by relatives in Poland, Irene Jankowiak, 49, said she was stunned when she found out her father's name was on the list.

She said he had spoken very little about his time in the camp.

"The clock stops at that moment and history came back to me and my family. (We) started wondering who he was and why he didn't tell us about it," she said.

Auschwitz museum officials have said they know that two of the Auschwitz prisoners who signed the message survived the camp, but did not know of their fate.

The only non-Pole on the list was French citizen Albert Veissid, 84, who lives in the southern French town of Marseille and who said the discovery was a "mystery" to him.
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