Some 400 valuable Jewish artifacts were uncovered in renovation of a Lodz apartment block.
Workers digging underground to insulate the building's foundation, stumbled upon a wooden box containing the valuables that belonged to Jew, likely living there during the Nazi occupation.
The box contained candlesticks, Etrog boxes, cutlery, cups, and other personal belongings such as perfume bottles and cigarette boxes.
The objects - which have been very well preserved and remained in good condition - were made out of glass, metal, or silver, and some of them had great historical and religious value.
The artifacts were apparently hidden by Jewish families so that the Nazis would not confiscate them. "This is the most prominent Judaica discovery of its kind in recent years in the Lodz area," said Daria Belszczyńska, spokesperson for the Provincial Heritage Protection Office in Lodz.
Some of the objects were found wrapped in newspapers, which were written in Polish, Yiddish, and German, dated to around October 1939.
"These artifacts must have been buried in haste, probably when the residents received an order to come to the ghetto," said Bartlomey Gwoz, an archaeologist who conducted research at the site. "Some of them were in an improvised box made of thin planks."
The apartment building is located at in the center of the city, near Izrael Poznański's Palace which was built at the end of the 19th century, and has not undergone significant renovation before this project.
Belszczyńska says that by looking at the state of the objects, it is fair to assume that they were buried around the beginning of World War II by an average Jew. Although it is unknown who exactly hid the objects, evidence suggests that there was a synagogue at the location.
The archaeologists cleaned the artifacts, and they will be donated to the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography in the city – where further research will be done to attempt to uncover whom they may have belonged to.