Secret WWII Resistance Photo Album Found Beneath Apartment Floorboards
A secret cache of World War II photographs of the resistance has been found beneath the floorboards of an apartment, where the album had been concealed in Nazi-occupied Poland.
The photographs and documents were recovered during renovation work at an apartment in Warsaw, Poland. Researchers have described the images as having “exceptional historical value,” according to a report by Polish news outlet TVP World.
Alongside the photographs, the mysterious cache contains resistance documents, the unidentified woman’s wartime diary, papers issued by the German High Command, covert training manuals, and Polish newspapers from the WWII period that were printed in Britain. According to researchers, the most notable aspect of the discovery may be the fact that the photographs and the diary belong to a young woman in the Resistance whose identity is not yet known.
The Praga-Południe district, where the find was made, served as a key base for the Polish Underground State during WWII, with active Home Army (Armia Krajowa) units and other resistance groups. The area hosted diversionary operations, underground printing, and secret educational activity.
Conservator Marcin Dawidowicz says the entire set of items will be transferred to a museum for cataloguing, preservation, and research. Officials expect to release further information and images after the initial examination is completed.
“It looks like we are dealing with a completely unique discovery of documents and books from just before the Warsaw Uprising,” Warsaw’s mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski tells TVP World. “Some describe the activities of the Underground State, some are testimonies of everyday life under occupation (e.g., prices of basic food products), and some are examples of work on preparing the state’s organization after the war. Experts will continue to investigate this discovery, but it looks sensational.”
The discovery comes shortly after the only known photographs of the deportation of the Jewish population in the German city of Hamburg were found in a German police officer’s secret photo album.
Dr. Alina Bothe, director of the “#LastSeen: Pictures of Nazi Deportations” project at the Free University of Berlin, believes that there are still many photographs that are yet to be discovered from World War II across the Reich and other parts of Europe. Bothe particularly notes the lack of photographs from German cities like Berlin and Frankfurt.
“For two cities — Berlin and Frankfurt — the lack of images is especially astonishing,” she tells Haaretz. “Ten percent of people in Germany in the 1930s owned cameras — that makes for at least 400,000 cameras in Berlin… So, where are the images from Berlin?”
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Facebook/Mazowiecki Wojewódzki Konserwator Zabytków.
