So we would know that they lived
Stories of the indomitable human spirit endure, and always encourage.
A note hidden in a bottle by Auschwitz prisoners 65 years ago in a desperate attempt to preserve a small piece of themselves was added Wednesday to the archives of the Polish state-run museum dedicated to the memory of the former Nazi death camp’s victims.
Museum Director Piotr Cywinski hailed the document — a list of the names of seven camp inmates that was discovered last month — as a rare discovery and a cause for celebration, given that at least three of the prisoners are still living today.
“This is a very clear sign of hope,” Cywinski said. “These young people put the message in a bottle to leave a sign. But not only the bottle survived — some of them also survived. This is very moving.”
The note, written in pencil on a scrap from a cement bag, was discovered by a construction crew renovating a cellar that was used by Nazis during World War II as a bunker and place to store food. The building is now on the grounds of a vocational school in Oswiecim, a town the Nazis called Auschwitz, whose director handed the note over to Cywinski in a ceremony.
Picture these young prisoners, scribbling the note on a scrap of a cement bag, and rushing to bury it in the wall before their captors detected it. The workers found this precious link to seven human beings who faced extermination.
One of the survivors, Waclaw Sobczak, recalled that he and his fellow inmates never expected to survive the camp and wanted to leave behind a trace of their lives.
“We did it so a sign of us would remain after we died,” said Sobczak, a diminutive 85 year old with thick white hair. “It was very risky and we had to be very careful putting it in the wall. We wanted at least our names and numbers to be left behind.”
Dated Sept. 20, 1944, the note bears the names, camp numbers and hometowns of the seven prisoners — six Roman Catholics from Poland and one Jewish inmate from France. It says that all were between the ages of 18 and 20 and assigned to build an anti-aircraft bunker for camp commanders.
“We agreed that we may not survive and that we will make this message in the bottle, and that we will put down our names and camp numbers and we will leave it in the bunker wall,” Sobczak recalled in a brief speech at the handover ceremony.
Like Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein and so terribly many others, these individuals continue to inspire hope that, no matter what the trial or persecution, human dignity is a force more powerful and enduring.