--- title: Holocaust Victims' Personal Items Discovered in Poland description: 16,000 personal items belonging to victims of the Holocaust have been recovered after researchers discovered they had been stored in boxes canonical: https://time.com/4361135/holocaust-items-discovered-auschwitz/ author: Emma Ockerman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-06-08T14:29:57.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T22:27:50.571Z article:section: History og:title: Thousands of Holocaust Victims' Personal Items Discovered Decades Later og:description: The 16,000 items had been excavated nearly 50 years ago, and were found in boxes og:url: https://time.com/4361135/holocaust-items-discovered-auschwitz/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27107cc99d134225/698896f22dce01be899e9647/20160607_przedmioty_1ohucn6imphcvqckhzpy.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: 20160607_przedmioty_1,oHuCn6impHCVqcKHZpY og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Thousands of Holocaust Victims' Personal Items Discovered Decades Later twitter:description: The 16,000 items had been excavated nearly 50 years ago, and were found in boxes twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27107cc99d134225/698896f22dce01be899e9647/20160607_przedmioty_1ohucn6imphcvqckhzpy.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Thousands of Holocaust Victims' Personal Items Discovered Decades Later by [Emma Ockerman](https://time.com/author/emma-ockerman/) ## Emma Ockerman Jun 8, 2016 2:29 PM UTC  Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum by [Emma Ockerman](https://time.com/author/emma-ockerman/) ## Emma Ockerman Jun 8, 2016 2:29 PM UTC More than 16,000 personal items belonging to [victims of the Holocaust were recovered ](http://auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/after-almost-half-a-century-thousands-of-personal-items-of-the-victims-of-auschwitz-are-returning-to-the-memorial,1203.html)after researchers discovered they had been unknowingly stored in cardboard boxes at the Polish Academy of Sciences. The belongings—all previously owned by victims of the [Nazi concentration camp](http://time.com/4186765/holocaust-remembrance-day-1996/) Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland—were originally excavated near one of the camp’s gas chambers and crematoriums in 1967, [NBC reports](http://auschwitz.org/en/museum/news/after-almost-half-a-century-thousands-of-personal-items-of-the-victims-of-auschwitz-are-returning-to-the-memorial,1203.html). In a news release Tuesday, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum described the items, including thermometers, jewelry, tobacco pipes and buttons, as a “moving personal testimony of the victims.” The items were often left near gas chambers as Jews were led to their death. The museum’s researchers spent several months searching for the objects, after becoming [convinced that there must be more than the approximately 400 items that had previously been recovered](http://time.com/4306460/aida-secrets-holocaust-movie/). The investigation eventually led to a building at the Polish Academy. “I had considered the discovery of such a huge collection in whole after nearly half a century as unlikely as finding the treasure of the lost Galleon. I can only try to imagine why the lost objects were deposited in these boxes just after digging up,” museum director Piotr M.A. Cywiński said in a news release. The items were transported to the museum on June 3, and will be documented and preserved. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4361135/holocaust-items-discovered-auschwitz/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4361135/holocaust-items-discovered-auschwitz/"},"headline":"Thousands of Holocaust Victims' Personal Items Discovered Decades Later","datePublished":"2016-06-08T14:29:57.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T22:27:50.571Z","description":"The items had been unknowingly stored in cardboard boxes at the Polish Academy of Sciences for nearly 50 years","url":"https://time.com/4361135/holocaust-items-discovered-auschwitz/","keywords":["Holocaust","Nazi","Poland"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27107cc99d134225/698896f22dce01be899e9647/20160607_przedmioty_1ohucn6imphcvqckhzpy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Emma Ockerman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/emma-ockerman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt27107cc99d134225/698896f22dce01be899e9647/20160607_przedmioty_1ohucn6imphcvqckhzpy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"20160607_przedmioty_1,oHuCn6impHCVqcKHZpY","caption":"","creditText":"Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/holocaust/","name":"Holocaust"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4361135/holocaust-items-discovered-auschwitz/","name":"Thousands of Holocaust Victims' Personal Items Discovered Decades Later"}}]}] ```