On July 10, a special ceremony took place at the Ravensbrück Memorial: a ring that once belonged to Halina Kucharczyk, a Polish victim of Nazi persecution who survived the Ravensbrück concentration camp for women, was returned to her granddaughters Sylwia and Anna Kucharczyk. One of our #StolenMemory volunteers had succeeded…
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Since 2022, the Arolsen Archives have presented the traveling exhibition #StolenMemory at 33 venues in Poland. Now, thanks to the German Foreign Office decision to continue its support through 2026, a further 20 venues in Poland are planned. And for the first time, a #StolenMemory poster exhibition will take place…
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Manuel Montes traveled from Australia to Madrid in early October, a distance of 17,000 km as the crow flies, to receive the last personal belongings of his great-granduncle Gabriel Álvarez Arjona. The Nazis had confiscated these items from Gabriel 80 years earlier in the Neuengamme concentration camp. After his long…
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The Arolsen Archives have eight envelopes containing the personal belongings of Greek victims of Nazi persecution. On June 20, 2024, we were able to return one of these envelopes for the very first time. It was handed over to the granddaughter of resistance fighter Vasilios Kontogeorgiou at the Greek Embassy…
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In a new, fifth animated film, which is accompanied by a web story, we tell the story of the Ukrainian national Zakhariy Kistechok. He was deported to Bavaria for forced labor where he died under unclear circumstances. One among millions of civilian forced laborers Zakhariy Kistechok was born in…
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Zbigniew Miłecki has had no news of his father for 80 years. And then one day the phone rings. It is not a sign of life, not a message that will bring his father back, but one that rekindles distant memories – his father’s watch still exists! Stolen from him…
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When the Nazis arrested Maurice Herment, they took away all of his personal belongings, which included a wallet with photos and documents. During the first #StolenMemory exhibition in Paris back in 2018, we appealed to the public for help in tracing Maurice Herment’s relatives. We have now managed to return…
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The Genenger siblings found out that their great-uncle Robert had been imprisoned in a concentration camp through an appeal for information that appeared in a local newspaper. The Nazis persecuted the trained roofer as a “career criminal.” They confiscated his personal belongings, which we have now returned to his relatives.
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The Nazis took away all of Hans-Joachim Bünger’s personal belongings when they arrested him – including a black pen which has now been returned to his family in London. He never lived there himself. Persecuted for his Jewish origins This is the first time we have returned a memento to…
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The Arolsen Archives launched the #StolenMemory campaign in November 2016. The aim was to return around 3,200 envelopes containing the personal belongings of concentration camp inmates to their relatives. Only thanks to a number of coincidences did a very small number of the personal possessions that the Nazis confiscated from…
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