Warsaw, Poland – The Auschwitz Museum have placed some of the suitcases of the Auschwitz victims in a modern storage room for protection. The said move has been partly funded by the European Union.
According to the museum’s spokesman, Pawel Sawicki, about 1,800 suitcases are now placed inside an air-conditioned and fire-proofed storage cupboards which were tailored fit for the luggage’s various sizes. While the other 2,000 suitcases are still on display in the museum, there will be a rotation of the luggage going on display and inside the storage room.
Many of the suitcases in the Auschwitz Museum bear the signatures of their respective owners. Take for example the suitcase of the German-language Jewish author of children’s books in Germany between the years 1920s and ’30s, Else Sara Ury.
Else was interred in the notorious Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust and died in one of its gas chambers in 1943. It can be remembered that over one million individuals, most of them European Jews, died in this Nazi death camp during the Second World War, between the years 1940 to 1945.