{"id":11352,"date":"2026-06-01T16:32:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=11352"},"modified":"2026-06-01T16:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:32:18","slug":"a-secret-bunker-tunnel-and-star-of-david-tell-a-story-of-jewish-resistance-in-a-polish-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=11352","title":{"rendered":"A secret bunker, tunnel and Star of David tell a story of Jewish resistance in a Polish town"},"content":{"rendered":"

By RAFAL NIEDZIELSKI and CLAUDIA CIOBANU<\/strong><\/p>\n

BEDZIN, Poland (AP) \u2014 A secret bunker, an underground tunnel and an armband bearing the Star of David are among the rare findings in a house in southern Poland that was used by Jews, including young members of the resistance, to hide from the Nazis.<\/p>

Read more Online commentators Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur barred from entering the UK for public events<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThis armband is a witness, it\u2019s like directly touching that evil which people created for other people,\u201d Karolina Jakowe\u0144ko from the Cukerman\u2019s Gate Foundation, which organized the search, told The Associated Press. Seeing it felt like a \u201cjolt,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jakowe\u0144ko spoke inside a two\u2011story redbrick house in the town of Bedzin, within the former Jewish ghetto during the World War II. The house served as the site of a \u201ckibbutz\u201d organized by youth from left\u2011wing Zionist groups \u2014 in this case, a network that relied on each other to try to ensure its members survived and resisted the Nazi occupiers.<\/p>\n

Each piece of rubble may hide a treasure<\/h4>\n

In the days before the interview, Jakowe\u0144ko and her colleagues cleared the house attic in preparation for renovation, lifting floorboards one by one and collecting rubble in buckets, then carefully examining each handful. Among objects spanning several decades, they discovered a Jewish prayer book from 1934, and the armband bearing the Star of David.<\/p>\n

The Cukerman\u2019s Gate Foundation last year uncovered a bunker and an underground tunnel on the grounds of the redbrick house, relying on survivors\u2019 memoirs and oral histories the foundation had collected. Evidence suggested there were three bunkers around the property.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entry to the bunker was through the kitchen oven,\u201d Piotr Jakowe\u0144ko said, pointing to a second bunker located under the kitchen, where bricks were arranged differently. \u201cWe are not aware any of the people here survived when the Nazis discovered this place. Perhaps as many as 60 were hiding here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uncovering the hideouts used by Jews to escape certain death required carefully examining the property, bit by bit, under the guidance of archaeologists.<\/p>

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Wojciech Mazan, one of the volunteers who helped with the search, said their work was grueling but it mirrored what the Jewish youth was doing to dig out the tunnel and bunkers. \u201cWe feel some closeness to them in this energy. The house is speaking to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

About 27,000 Jews lived in Bedzin before the war, representing half the town population. Others lived in nearby towns and villages in the coal-mining area neighboring Germany, forming one of the most cosmopolitan and economically developed Jewish communities in Poland. In 1942, the Nazi occupation authorities formalized the creation of ghettos for Jews.<\/p>\n

The house Jakowe\u0144ko and her colleagues are caring for today is an important point on the map of Jewish resistance in Nazi-occupied Poland. While the best known episode is the fight of Jews against Nazis during the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1943, many other pockets of resistance existed across the country.<\/p>\n