Polish #StolenMemory volunteers and supporters gathered in Warsaw on January 9 for their third annual meeting. Volunteers from Ukraine took part for the first time – a campaign and a new traveling exhibition currently underway there are encouraging more people to get involved in the search for families. Over the past ten years, since the #StolenMemory campaign began in 2016, the Polish Tracing Team at the Arolsen Archives has worked with volunteers to locate more than 400 families in Poland. The meeting, organized by the Outreach in Central and Eastern Europe Unit, gave participants a chance to talk about their experiences so far. They discussed their personal motivation and reflected on how history continues to shape the present.

“Volunteers are at the heart of #StolenMemory. They can conduct research at a local level, reaching out to church congregations and local residents, and leaving messages at cemeteries, for example,” explained Anna Meier-Osiński, Outreach Manager at the Arolsen Archives. She is grateful to all those who dedicate their free time to searching for relatives and returning personal effects for the #StolenMemory campaign. The annual meeting was initiated three years ago by the Arolsen Archives’ Outreach Central and Eastern Europe Unit in order to strengthen and expand the network of volunteers in the region.

In addition to the volunteers themselves, the meeting was also attended by the coordinators from the participating schools, a number of Polish Red Cross employees, and representatives from the Arolsen Archives. “I’m especially encouraged by the young people’s dedication,” commented the Outreach Manager, highlighting the strong cross-border cooperation between young people from Poland, Germany, and Ukraine. “They all work extremely well together, they’re very interested in history, and everyone treats each other with sensitivity and with an awareness of each other’s circumstances. The war in Ukraine, in particular, shows them how history continues to shape the present.”

Situation in Ukraine a primary concern

Reports from Ukrainian volunteers attending the meeting underscore this point. “We started searching for families in 2023. After a year of war, #StolenMemory had become a painful issue for us and one that suddenly felt very close to home,” explained Hanna Tarkovska, a teacher at the specialized Aviation High School affiliated with the National Aviation University in Kyiv. “During the workshops that taught us how to search for relatives, we realized that we’re now experiencing something very similar in Ukraine. Eighty years have passed since the Second World War, and now we too will receive things that once belonged to Ukrainian prisoners and victims.”

Her colleague Oleksandra Belshyna added: “I’m not working in my profession at the moment, so this project is a meaningful way for me to contribute. It means a lot to me that I’m helping to return personal belongings to Ukrainian families. The return of these mementoes is especially important for Ukrainian families right now.”

Volunteers share their experiences

Beyond the focus on Ukraine, the meeting centered on participants sharing their experiences. Zofia Przeworska, Sabina Kwiatkowska, Kinga Paciorek and Mateusz Mika were students at the Konarski Secondary School in Oświęcim (Auschwitz) when they got to know each other through the #StolenMemory project in 2019. Education officer Ela Pasternak from the International Youth Meeting Center (IYMC) started the group and provided guidance. The young volunteers have found twelve families in the last six years.

At the meeting, they talked about what moved them most. “For me, the direct contact with the families is the part I find most moving. We’re not just returning people’s belongings, we’re also returning memories. Seeing what that means to them is truly priceless,” commented Zofia. For Sabina, the connection to her own family history is what drives her. Some of her relatives were deported to concentration camps. Kinga values the friendships that develop in the course of research.

Meaningful moments

For Mateusz, it is particularly important that initiatives like #StolenMemory keep history alive. “History isn’t set in stone one and for all, we can continue writing it by putting it back into the hands of the families who lost loved ones in the Second World War,” he commented at the meeting. “I feel very grateful whenever a family we’ve found wants to meet with us despite the pain they feel,” he added, recalling the first time personal belongings were returned – to the family of Tadeusz Sieprawski in June 2020. “For the family, it felt as if Tadeusz was finally returning home.”

Brygida Koczar, who is involved with #StolenMemory at the Municipal Cultural Center in Żory, also finds moments like these very meaningful – and they encourage her to keep going. She has already found three families: “I can safely say that this is the greatest responsibility I’ve ever taken on. No certificates or awards can compare with hearing people say things like ‘This has meant a lot to me, now I can sleep peacefully’ or ‘This ring is the most valuable thing I have in my life,’” she said.

History lessons with an emotional impact

Many of the schools became involved in the search for relatives through the long-standing partnership between the Arolsen Archives and the German-Polish Youth Office (GPYO): #StolenMemory as a German-Polish educational project is supported by the GPYO. Jacek Andrzejewski teaches German at the vocational school in Gdynia. Working together with a class from the vocational school in Bad Oldesloe, his students found relatives of Paweł Urlicki. At the meeting, he also described how he has not only succeeded in motivating his pupils, but has also involved older adults from Poland and Germany in the search.

Urszula Mach’s account showed how a search can gain momentum when a number of organizations are involved. She coordinates the #StolenMemory search for relatives at the General Secondary School in Łańcut and spoke about the remarkable dedication shown by a friend from Warsaw who helped trace Zofia Mościcka’s relatives. Twice, she left a message at Zofia Mościcka’s grave in the Bródno cemetery in Warsaw before her relatives finally contacted the school class.

“It was very moving – both for the students and for us.” On March 20, 2025, her personal effects were finally returned. The students from Łańcut are currently searching for another family. They are following a promising lead and are on the verge of a breakthrough.

“Searching for these families greatly enriches the educational work we do in our schools, and students respond with great interest,” said Marek Kiełbiński, Director of the First Secondary School in Mława. He describes the #StolenMemory project as a fascinating history lesson that educates students about Nazi crimes and uses personal stories to help them relate the past to their own lives. Guided by Małgorzata Bielska, his students have managed to find three families so far. For her, the most moving moment she recalls was when a necklace was handed over to the son of Marianna Midzińska-Stramko who was arrested at the age of 16 and deported to the Stutthof and Neuengamme concentration camps.

The Polish Red Cross: Years of Experience

Is it easier to search when you have direct access to a card file containing seven million names? Not necessarily, according to Ewa Leśniewska, who works for the Polish Red Cross. The organization has supported #StolenMemory since the beginning. At the meeting, she outlined the organization’s approach and described the steps that need to be taken in order to clarify a person’s fate. To determine whether someone survived the war, the Polish Red Cross consults the Institute of National Remembrance, the Central Archives of Modern Records, and regional state archives. This enables them to find out whether the person was registered somewhere and whether they can be clearly identified through a social security number, for example.

Activities and exhibitions organized through #StolenMemory in Poland and Ukraine are funded through the “Eastern Partnership” program of the Federal Foreign Office.