Two wristwatches and a signet ring bring back memories of Stanislaus Szydlewski. His nephew Harry Klawezynski remembers that his uncle was interned in Neuengamme concentration camp for a year and weighed just 30 kilograms when he arrived home. On February 21, 2026, #StolenMemory volunteer Nathalie Letierce-Liebig handed over Stanislaus Szydlewski’s personal effects to his nephew Harry. She carried out digital research in three countries around the world before eventually locating Stanislaus’s relatives in Meyzieu, near Lyon, France.

Where did Stanislaus Szydlewski come from? And where might his relatives be living today? Where was he when he was deported to the Neuengamme concentration camp, and why was he sent there? Did he survive his imprisonment?

“The case of Stanislaus Szydlewski seemed hopeless, because we had no information about his origins apart from his date of birth: August 13, 1905. We didn’t know his nationality or his place of birth. But we did have a prisoner number: 33673,” explains Nathalie Letierce-Liebig, describing her search. Nathalie worked for the Arolsen Archives for over 40 years. Since she retired, she has been helping to search for families for the #StolenMemory project. The sequence and the structure of the number reminded her of deportations to the Neuengamme concentration camp from the French transit camp Compiègne. Stanislaus’s date of internment, which is given as June 7, 1944, in the Neuengamme concentration camp register of prisoners, also matched her hypothesis. Nathalie consulted the Memorial Book of the French Foundation for the Memory of Deportation and found what she was looking for.

Deported from France on June 4, 1944

Stanislaus Szydlewski is one of 2,064 French men crammed into railway wagons by the SS at the Compiègne transit camp on June 4, 1944, and deported to Neuengamme concentration camp. Bernard Morey, who was deported to Neuengamme concentration camp on the same train as Stanislaus, described the journey in his Memoirs: “Our train trundled along… All we could think about was how thirsty we were. We didn’t know what to do with the limp bodies of those who had fallen unconscious… The human gave way to the animal. In our wagon, brawls were becoming more and more frequent.”

The Nazis classified Stanislaus as a “political prisoner,” but what he was accused of remains unclear. The deportees were either resistance fighters or people who had refused to participate in the forced labor service imposed by the Vichy government. It is also possible that Stanislaus was caught in a raid. From 1944 onwards, the Nazis arrested people indiscriminately in villages all over occupied France if they suspected the presence of resistance fighters.

Prisoners’ personal effects as silent witnesses of camp imprisonment

Once they arrived at the Neuengamme concentration camp, the men had to undress before being disinfected and shaved. They were given prisoner clothing and a prisoner number and had to hand in all their personal belongings. Stanislaus had two wristwatches and a yellow signet ring with him. These and other items were stored in “personal effects storage rooms” on the grounds of the concentration camp, where they remained until the SS cleared the camp shortly before the end of the war and hid the prisoners’ personal belongings from the advancing British troops in the bowling alley of a local inn. British troops later discovered them, including Stanislaus’s watches and his gold ring.

In 1963, around 4,700 envelopes containing personal effects arrived in Bad Arolsen. The International Tracing Service (now the Arolsen Archives) was tasked with finding surviving prisoners or their relatives in order to return their personal belongings. In hundreds of cases, the search was successful.

However, the research methods available back then were limited, and neither Stanislaus nor his relatives could be found at first. Had he survived the concentration camp? Had he returned home? And where was his home? In 2016, the Arolsen Archives launched a new attempt to return the remaining effects. The internet, social media, and digitized archival holdings had opened up brand new ways of conducting research. And so, 80 years later, volunteer Nathalie took up the search for Stanislaus once again: “Unfortunately, the Memorial Book contained no further personal details. And the name Szydlewski couldn’t be found anywhere in France. At some point, though, I found a lead on a genealogical website: a child named Stanislas Szydlewski, who was baptized on 20.08.1905 in Bydgoszcz,” she recalls.

First clue leads to Poland

When Nathalie wrote to the State Archives in Bydgoszcz, which was in Prussia before World War I and known as Bromberg, she received the confirmation she had been hoping for: The child really was Stanislaus, born on August 13, 1905, in Schwedenhöhe (now known as Szwederowo), a small settlement near Bromberg.

He grew up there with three sisters, the youngest of whom died at the age of one. But it was his older sister Marta’s life that gave Nathalie a promising new lead: Marta got married in Bydgoszcz in 1924, and her married name was Klawczyński. She had a daughter named Eugenia in 1926 and emigrated to France in 1931.

Search ends successfully in France

Nathalie only discovered this information after a digital detour that took her to the United States: “When I searched online, I couldn’t find a family with the name Klawczyński in France – but I did find someone with a similar name in the USA: Eugenya F. Smith, née Klawezynski. The date of birth matched and so did the place of birth: Bydgoszcz. There was no doubt in my mind that Eugenia Klawczyński and Eugenya Klawezynski were one and the same person and that I had found Stanislaus Szydlewski’s niece.”

Although Eugenya had passed away in 1991, Nathalie managed to track down her brother, Harry Klawezynski, who was nearly 93 years old by then and living in France. On February 21, 2026, she met him in person and gave the two watches and the signet ring to him in the presence of his wife, son, daughter, and son-in-law.

“Harry was deeply moved and still remembered his uncle well. Stanislaus was known to everyone as “Léo,” and he had a girlfriend. She picked him up at the train station after the war but could hardly recognize him because he was so thin. He weighed just 30 kilograms and was deeply marked by his internment.” They did not get married, and Stanislaus had no children. He went back to work as a painter, which is how he had earned his living before he was deported. He died in the 1970s in Nantes, where he had followed his older sister and her young family.