Excavation work being carried out inside the Ghetto Fighters’ House in Będzin (Credit: Facebook/Fundacja Brama Cukermana)[Missing Credit]
Among the most significant finds was a small siddur, dated 1934 and discovered inside a concealed hatch in the attic.
“Someone had prepared a special place for it in the attic,” the foundation said. “Behind a separately partitioned space. Under a constructed hatch. Alone. Without other objects. Without rubbish. Without rubble.
“As if someone had wanted to protect it. As if someone believed that one day, someone would find it.”
A siddur found inside the Ghetto Fighters’ House in Będzin (Credit: Facebook/Fundacja Brama Cukermana)[Missing Credit]
On one of the pages, researchers also found the name of Moses Merin, who was the head of the Sosnowiec Ghetto Judenrat and was later murdered in Auschwitz. The foundation noted there is no confirmed link between Merin and the inscription in the prayer book.
A second major discovery was a faded grey armband bearing a worn Star of David.
“It was a moment that cannot be described in words alone,” the foundation said. “Someone once wore this armband. Someone was marked by it. Someone left it here, or hid it.”
An armband with a Star of David found inside the Ghetto Fighters’ House in Będzin (Credit: Facebook/Fundacja Brama Cukermana)[Missing Credit]
Additional artefacts recovered from the site include fragments of photographs, pre-war and post-war newspaper clippings, medicine bottles with German writing, and fragments of documents, cards, and papers written in Hebrew.
The foundation said the work will continue for several more days or weeks, adding: “We do not know what else we will find. But we know one thing: the House of the Ghetto Fighters is still speaking.”
“We only need to listen patiently, and draw its memory out from beneath layer after layer of dust.”
During the Second World War, a local branch of the Jewish Combat Organisation fought against Nazi forces in the Będzin area ahead of the ghetto’s liquidation in August 1943 – now known as the Będzin Ghetto Uprising.
The Cukerman’s Gate Foundation was established in 2009 with the aim of preserving the synagogue in Będzin. In 2024, it acquired the Będzin Ghetto Fighters’ House.
The current excavation project, titled “The House of the Ghetto Fighters in Będzin — research and documentary and conceptual work on a memorial site, stage 2”, is co-financed by Poland’s Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
